[When a cure leads to illness: health professionals in hospitals and the risk of infections].

The risk of infection in a hospital is an age-old concern that one would have thought vanished with the arrival of antibiotics. Nosocomial infections (NI), which have now become a major public health issue, refer to infections that affect both patients and professionals. However, NI affecting patients have more social visibility than those that are likely to affect health professionals. The aim of this qualitative research study based on 117 semi-guided interviews with hospital care providers is to establish the professional risk and the way it is perceived by health professionals. Results are presented and discussed in two parts: the segmentation of the infectious risk representations and practices such as negotiating compromises between conflicting requirements.