Knowledge, Attitude and Practice about COVID-19 Clinical Waste Management among Medical Health Practitioners

ABSTRACT

Aims & Objectives: COVID-19 clinical waste management has become a concern with increasing number of medical practitioners in India. Being health care professionals, one should be aware regarding safe disposal of biomedical waste and recycling of the materials to minimize biohazards to the environment. The aim of the present study was to assess awareness regarding biomedical waste management among medical practitioners. Material(s) and Method(s) This cross-sectional study was conducted among medial practitioners belonging from all medical colleges and private practitioners in Khorda district, Odisha (India) from February 2022 to April 2022. A total of 100 doctors (58 males and 42 females) participated in the study, which was conducted in two phases. A form was distributed to assess the attention of COVID-19 clinical waste management and information of effective utilisation of materials, and picked up knowledge was examined on a 5-point unipolar scale in percentages to assess the relative awareness relating to these 2 totally different categorizes. The applied math Package for Social Sciences was accustomed analyzed collected data. Result(s) Twenty-four percent of the medical practitioners were not at all aware about the management of COVID-19 clinical waste, 29% were moderately aware, 37% slightly aware, 7% very aware, and 3% fall in extremely aware category. A higher percentage of participants were completely unaware regarding recycling and reusing of COVID-19 clinical waste. Conclusion(s) There is a lack of sufficient knowledge among medical practitioners regarding management of COVID-19 clinical waste and recycling of materials. Considering its impact on the environment, COVID-19 clinical waste management requires immediate academic assessment to increase awareness during training courses. Copyright © 2022 Ubiquity Press. All rights reserved.