A cross sectional study on the knowledge, attitude and practices of medical and paramedical staff regarding the bio-medical waste management in a tertiary care institute in Lucknow

Background:The bio-medical waste products create particularly serious problems for the municipalities and its safe disposal is becoming a serious environmental problem. The concern regarding medical wastes is mainly due to the presence of pathogenic organisms and organic substances in hospital solid wastes in significantly higher concentrations. About one fourth of biomedical waste is considered as hazardous and may affect the health of both medical personnel and general community. Aim and objectives of the research was to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice about the biomedical waste management among the staff (medical and paramedical) of a tertiary care medical institute. Methods:The design of the study was observational, descriptive and cross-sectional. It was conducted in a 500 bedded private sector tertiary care medical institute in Lucknow. The study unit consisted of medical and paramedical staff (doctors, staff nurses, and ward boys) and sample size was 241 who consented to be a part of the study. All the study units who had been in the job for atleast 6 months in IIMSR who consented for the study were included; purposive convenience sampling was implemented and study period was from January 2018 to March 2018.Results:Majority across all the types of study participants were males, married, residing in urban areas and having not undergone any formal training. Our study found that though all the study participants in various groups were having the relevant level of knowledge but attitude and practices were variable.Conclusions:This study showed that knowledge may be higher but attitude and practices are variable and are not related to educational level.