Where Lies the Grey Zone in Implementation of Biomedical Waste Management? A KAP Study

Abstract

Background: Biomedical waste is the most hazardous and potentially dangerous of all the wastes arising in the community. Health care personnel are expected to have proper knowledge, practice and capacity to guide others for waste management. On this background this study was undertaken to assess the knowledge and practice on Bio-Medical Waste management (BMWM) and to identify gaps in the BMWM practices in our hospital. Objectives: To assess knowledge, attitude and practices of various categories of Health Care Workers (HCW) regarding BMWM and to analyse the correlation between knowledge, attitude and practices. Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional study conducted among HCWs (n=196) working at tertiary care hospital. An assessment tool was prepared to include various aspects of BMWM. The association between the knowledge, attitude and practice was analysed by Spearman’s rank correlation and p value were calculated. Results: Maximum number (69%) of subjects were females. Age of participants ranged from 17 to 32 years. Training on BMWM has been undertaken by 78% of study subjects. Majority of participants (64%) scored good and 36% scored average in knowledge assessment. Spearman’s rank correlation showed a weak positive correlation between knowledge score and attitude score(r=0.195) (p=0.001) and knowledge score and practice score (r=0.037) (p=0.745) Conclusion: The present study highlights the gap between knowledge, attitude and execution in practice by HCW regarding BMWM. Periodical evaluation and regular training is necessary to improvise the current status of practice.

Keywords

• bio-medical waste
• health care workers
• knowledge
• practice
• tertiary care hospital