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INTRODUCTION@#Unregulated biomedical waste management is an emerging public health problem in the Philippines. This study aimed to differentiate the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of nurses and medical technologists toward biomedical waste management.@*METHODS@#Using an analytic cross-sectional study design, an online survey of nurses and medical technologists from hospitals around the Philippines was conducted. A 27-item questionnaire covering knowledge, attitudes and practices was used. The percentages of correct answers and mean scores in each domain was compared between the nurses and medical technologists.@*RESULTS@#A total of 196 respondents consisting of 77 registered nurses and 119 medical technologists were included in the study. Medical technologists had significantly better knowledge scores than nurses on disposal procedures for expired blood units and by-products waste (55% vs. 19%, p = 0.026). Both had low correct responses on adequate disposal of human tissue remains, throwing blood waste into domestic waste, and throwing of expired medications in domestic waste. There was no significant difference in the attitude of nurses and medical technologists. Nurses had significantly better practice scores on disposal of liquid waste in bags (84.4% vs. 68.9, p = 0.018), but medical technologists fared better at disposal of human tissue together with other waste (13.0% vs. 2.5%, p = 0.006). @*CONCLUSION@#Both nurses and medical technologists had adequate knowledge of some aspects but were lacking in others. There was no significant difference in the attitude of nurses and medical technologists towards biomedical waste management. Half of the respondents practiced proper biomedical waste management.
Subject(s)
Medical Laboratory Personnel , Waste Management , Knowledge , AttitudeABSTRACT
Background: Every day, relatively large amount of potentially infectious and hazardous wastes is generated in the health-care hospitals and facilities around the world. Indiscriminate disposal and improper management of waste generated in health care facilities causes serious threat to environment and to human health that requires specific treatment and management prior to its final disposal.Methods: Cross-sectional study was conducted among 241 health care personnel working at Mahatma Gandhi Memorial hospital, Warangal. Data was collected and pre and post analysis was done using a pre-validated self-administered questionnaire. Data was entered in MS Excel and analysed using SPSS 17 software.Results: Among 241 respondents, 33.2% were sanitary staff, 35.3% are nursing staff and 31.5% are nursing students. Only 35.7% of participants has knowledge regarding the colour of the bag into which expired antibiotics are discarded and 45.2% of participants were aware of the colour of the bag in which IV bottles, gloves were discarded. Scoring for 10 was done in both pre and post-test and post test scores were found to be higher and there is significant increase in level of knowledge of biomedical waste management rules in study population in post-test analysis (p<0.001).Conclusions: Training program on the waste management in the health sector has significant effect in increasing knowledge of the healthcare personnel
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Background: Biomedical waste poses hazard due to two principal reasons: infectivity and toxicity. 75-90% of waste produced by health care facilities is generally non risky but remaining 10-25% is regarded as hazardous with the potential for creating a variety of health problems. Biomedical waste management is an integral part of infection control practices. Virtuoso biomedical waste handling leads to a better environment for medical as well as surgical care patients.Methods: It is a descriptive forward moving study conducted to empower first year MBBS students about biomedical waste management and handling skills to enhance their expertise for future as a competent physician or surgeon and to assess their knowledge gain.Results: Out of 150 students, 131 were present. 68 were males and 63 were females. Mean age was 21.33 with standard deviation of 3.745. Mean marks obtained were 3.09±1.15 (out of 5). ANOVA statistics revealed insignificant p value denoting unambiguous pattern of knowledge gain by all the participants.Conclusions: Empowering medical undergraduates with basic medical skills at an early stage will make them more efficient for future endeavors.
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Background: India as a developing country is facing a lot of health care problems, with the increase in health care facilities, there is a growing concern of hazards of biomedical waste. Since the nursing staff is at the centre of biomedical waste handling, their knowledge of adequate disposal of biomedical waste is of utmost importance. So, we conducted a study regarding knowledge, attitude and practice of nursing staff working in a premier institute of western Rajasthan with respect to biomedical waste and its management.Methods: This was a hospital-based descriptive, observational study conducted in our institute in the month of October and November of 2018. Written consent was taken and pre-defined questionnaire was prepared based on a review of literature on the subject. Scrutiny was done for the data for any logical inconsistencies, skip patterns and missing values. Coding of the data was done and entered into a Microsoft Excel. Descriptive and inferential statistics were applied for data analysis.Results: 150 participants took part in the questionnaire based study. The study showed that majority of participants have adequate knowledge, attitude and practice toward biomedical waste management but still, there were gaps in the knowledge and practice in essentially quite a lot of participants which should not be there.Conclusions: There is a need for strict implementation of biomedical rules at all the tiers of healthcare. There should be regular orientation programs for nursing staff and other health personnel working in the institutes.
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Biomedical waste management is an integral part of traditional and contemporary system of health care.The paper focuses on the identification and classification of biomedical wastes in Ayurvedic hospitals,current practices of its management in Ayurveda hospitals and its future prospective. Databases likePubMed (1975e2017 Feb), Scopus (1960e2017), AYUSH Portal, DOAJ, DHARA and Google scholar weresearched. We used the medical subject headings ‘biomedical waste’ and ‘health care waste’ for identification and classification. The terms ‘biomedical waste management’, ‘health care waste management’alone and combined with ‘Ayurveda’ or ‘Ayurvedic’ for current practices and recent advances in thetreatment of these wastes were used. We made a humble attempt to categorize the biomedical wastesfrom Ayurvedic hospitals as the available data about its grouping is very scarce. Proper biomedical wastemanagement is the mainstay of hospital cleanliness, hospital hygiene and maintenance activities. Currentdisposal techniques adopted for Ayurveda biomedical wastes are e sewage/drains, incineration and landfill. But these methods are having some merits as well as demerits. Our review has identified a number ofinteresting areas for future research such as the logical application of bioremediation techniques inbiomedical waste management and the usage of effective micro-organisms and solar energy in wastedisposal.© 2017 Transdisciplinary University, Bangalore and World Ayurveda Foundation. Publishing Services byElsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
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Microbiologists play a pivotal role in the prevention of infection both at hospital and community level. Biomedical waste management (BMWM) is one of the aspects of infection control. For the effective implementation of this, various training programmes have been conducted at our regional training centre. This study evaluates the impact of the BMWM training programme. Knowledge on all parameters was signifi cantly better at post-course evaluation for all the participants (P value 0.001). Evaluation of training is recommended to improve the effectiveness of training method.