Assessment of knowledge, attitude, and practice about biomedical waste management among healthcare workers during COVID-19 pandemic in a health district of West Bengal

Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Biomedical Waste Management Among Doctors and Nurses During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Puducherry: A Cross-Sectional Study

Background Biomedical waste (BMW) management is an important practice that has to be followed by all healthcare workers (HCW) in health centres. COVID-19 had become a global threat, and the spread of the infection had increased drastically. Healthcare workers were already involved in managing COVID-19 patients. It is essential to have adequate knowledge, attitude and good practices among healthcare workers during the COVID-19 period. Hence, the present study was conducted to assess the knowledge, attitude and practices of COVID-19 biomedical waste management among doctors and nurses working in a private tertiary care centre in Puducherry. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice of BMW management among doctors and nurses who were working during the COVID-19 period. A total of 384 samples were recruited, and the study was conducted for a period of four months. Data were collected from a pre-validated, pre-tested questionnaire that assessed the knowledge, attitude and practices of biomedical waste management. Further analysis was done using Microsoft (MS) Excel (Microsoft® Corp., Redmond, WA) and the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software (IBM SPSS Statistics, Armonk, NY). Results Among the 384 participants, 152 (39.6%) had excellent knowledge, 143 (37.2%) had good knowledge and 89 (23.2%) had poor knowledge. Among the 111 doctors, 55 (49.5%) had excellent knowledge, and 36 (32.4%) had good knowledge. Among the 273 nurses, 107 (39.2%) had good knowledge and 97 (35.5%) had excellent knowledge. Of the study participants, 98.2% had a favourable attitude, and 89.6% had favourable practices towards biomedical waste management. Occupation and training received on BMW management were found to be predictors of knowledge regarding biomedical waste management. Conclusion From the present study, it is found that the knowledge of biomedical waste management needs to be improved among doctors and nurses, especially in situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic. In this study, a positive correlation was found between knowledge score and practice score, which states that increasing knowledge regarding biomedical waste management will improve practice towards biomedical waste management. Also, doctors and nurses who had already received training in biomedical waste management were found to have better knowledge than those who had not. Hence, the college administration should do various health education activities and training sessions to enhance biomedical waste management among doctors and nurses working in the hospital.

Knowledge, attitude, and perceived practice of sanitary workers on healthcare waste management: A descriptive cross-sectional study in Dodoma region,Tanzania

Introduction

Healthcare facilities produce a variety of trash that, if handled improperly, could endanger the environment, the health of patients and clients, healthcare personnel, and the general public. Health staff have been given training on infection control and healthcare waste management. It is not apparent whether similar initiatives are taken for sanitary personnel, though. By evaluating sanitary workers' knowledge, attitudes, and practices about healthcare waste treatment in the Dodoma region of Tanzania, this study sought to clarify the situation.

Methods

From March to August 2022 in Dodoma, Tanzania, a descriptive cross-sectional study using a quantitative methodology was conducted on 156 randomly chosen sanitary workers. The primary data collection instruments were structured questionnaires that were conducted by interviewers and a trash checklist that the research team created. Statistical Package for Social Sciences computer software was used to conduct a descriptive analysis of the data with a 95% confidence level and a 5% level of significance.

Results

The average age was 28 ± 6.2 years, and there were 74.4% females. Of all of the health institutions under study, 78.4% of the generated medical waste was non-infectious, whereas 21.6% of it was infectious. The share of non-infectious and infectious healthcare waste created by regional referral hospitals was 43.5% and 13.2%, respectively. While 67.8% of sanitary workers believed that handling healthcare waste was not their problem and 63.6% of sanitary workers actually displayed subpar practices of handling healthcare waste, 74.4% of sanitary workers had low understanding about handling healthcare waste. Their procedures for handling medical waste were substantially influenced by the kind of healthcare facility, sex, education, job experience, knowledge, and attitude (p < 0.05).

Conclusion

Sanitary staff members had limited understanding and thought they were less concerned with gathering, moving, and storing medical waste. To provide the highest level of health safety, national health policy and facility-based interventions must support and fund participatory waste management training that is tailored to the sociodemographic profiles of sanitary employees.

Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Personnel Involved in Bio Medical Waste Handling about COVID-19 & Its Bio-Medical Waste Management: A Descriptive Analysis

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an increased amount of biomedical waste, worsening the already strained biomedical waste management system in India. As biomedical waste handlers are the core of biomedical waste handling, their knowledge, attitude, and practices regarding sorting, segregation, transport, and storage of the waste are of prime concern. This study aims to evaluate the knowledge, attitude and practices of personnel involved in biomedical waste handling about COVID-19 and its biomedical waste management at All India Institute of Medical Sciences Mangalagiri. Design: Cross-sectional survey. Setting: AIIMS Mangalagiri and common bio-medical waste treatment facility at Guntur. Participants- Personnel involved in bio-medical waste handling Methodology: The study enrolled a total of 139 participants from December 2020 to January 2021. A convenient sampling technique was used and a questionnaire was administered by face-to-face interview. Results: The study showed that half of the participants had favorable knowledge about bio-medical waste management (average score 5.08 and range 1-9). Two-thirds of the respondents felt that handling COVID-19 waste is necessary to contain the infection. Conversely, the practices regarding COVID-19 and its biomedical waste management were not in conformity with attitudes and knowledge. Fewer participants knew the exact sequence of donning (15.80%) and doffing (31.70%). Majority of participants (72.7%) desired a hands-on training for handling biomedical waste. Conclusion: Participants have good knowledge and attitudes regarding COVID-19 bio-medical waste management, but are not adhering to it. This explains the need for comprehensive training programs for all those involved in bio-medical waste management of COVID-19.

Assessment of the awareness about COVID-19 and the following-up of guidelines for biomedical wastes in Jaipur city

In this COVID-19 era, isolating people and reviewing their contacts has proven to be insufficient to control the COVID-19 pandemic as there was a huge gap between exposure to the virus and isolation due to the late onset of symptoms. This led to the spread of infection and people faced the consequences not only of viral infection, but also of financial and occupational crises. People followed best management practices, however, new variants emerged that caused infection. With little information on new COVID-19 variants and their transmission, the disease spread rapidly in humans. Until now, the link between the spread of COVID-19 and the disposal of biomedical waste with household waste has not been established. Therefore, the only way to prevent infection is to make people aware. It is still necessary to open the doors for research to find the possible cause of the appearance of a new variant of COVID-19. To cope with the situation, the level of awareness among the public and their action towards the prevention of spread of infection caused by COVID-19 and its emerging variants must be known. Therefore, a survey was conducted in Jaipur from January to February 2022 to find out the status of awareness. Results of the survey revealed that both people are aware about the infection caused by COVID-19 and its variants. They are also aware about the precautions to be followed to protect themselves from acquiring COVID-19 infection. Most of the people are using masks but not gloves to prevent themselves from the infection. Merely, 71.6% of young, 100% of adults, 40% of old people sanitize their masks and gloves before disposal. Only 66.5% people are using separate bags for the collection of wastes. Despite of awareness about biomedical waste, 25% of young never sanitize, and 26.13% of young seldom sanitizes their waste before disposal. Such types of cases were not observed in adults and old age groups. Similarly, 2.3% of young did not sanitize PPE kit prior to disposal. Results of this study revealed that there is awareness about the different strains of corona virus and biomedical wastes. However, some people showed casual behaviour in the waste disposal practices. The strict implementation of rules to dispose biomedical waste will be useful for dealing with biomedical waste in this pandemic period.

Assessment of knowledge, attitude and practice about biomedical waste management among healthcare staff of Fasa educational hospitals in COVID-19 pandemic

An efficient management of biomedical waste (BMW) is essential to maintaining health and preventing environmental threats during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, the present research aimed to explore the knowledge, attitude, and practice about BMW among the healthcare staff of Fasa educational hospitals. The present cross-sectional study used an online questionnaire survey to collect data from 251 employees in Valiasr and Shariati hospitals in 2021. T-test, ANOVA, and Pearson correlation coefficient were used to test the relationships between and among the variables. Demographic findings showed that the men and women participated to an almost equal rate. Most participants were young and had less than 5 years' work experience. Their mean scores of knowledge, attitude, and practice were 38.8±6.1, 83.0±8.8, and 47.5±14.5, respectively. These values point to a satisfactory level of each variable in relation to BMW management. Pearson's correlation coefficient test showed a strong positive association between knowledge and practice (r = 0.725). The T-test results showed a statistically significant relationship among knowledge, attitude, and practice across demographic variables. These included gender, ward (COVID vs. Non-COVID), and workplace (p < 0.05). ANOVA results showed statistically significant divergences in knowledge, attitude, and practice across the demographic variables, including education, position, and employment type (p < 0.05). Considering the current deficiencies among employees in terms of BMW acronyms, lack of waste training courses, and inappropriate waste plans for COVID-19 waste management, BMW training courses should be held continuously and regularly, and the content of the programs should be updated according to the emergencies.

Biomedical waste disposal practices among healthcare workers during COVID-19 pandemic in secondary and tertiary care facilities of Tamil Nadu

Purpose

The ongoing COVID-19 crisis has drastically changed the practice of biomedical waste (BMW) generation and management. Studies venturing into the facility level preparedness at various levels of healthcare delivery during pandemic situation is the need of the hour. Hence, we did this study to assess the BMW disposal practices amongst secondary and tertiary health facilities during COVID-19 pandemic in Tamil Nadu.

Materials and methods

This cross-sectional survey was conducted amongst doctors, nurses and allied healthcare staffs across various departments in 18 public health facilities across six districts of Tamil Nadu. Multivariable logistic regression analysis was done based on the random-intercept model to assess the determinants of BMW disposal practices. The effect size was reported as adjusted odds ratio (aOR) with 95% confidence interval (CI).

Results

In total, 2593 BMW disposal observations were made. During nearly three-fourth of the observations (73%), the BMW was disposed of appropriately. Nurses (aOR ​= ​1.54; 95%CI: 1.06–2.23) and doctors (aOR ​= ​1.60; 95%CI: 1.05–2.45), healthcare workers in Paediatrics department (aOR ​= ​1.77; 95%CI: 1.13–2.76), healthcare workers in inpatient department (aOR ​= ​2.77; 95%CI: 1.95–3.94) and injection outpatient department (aOR ​= ​2.69; 95%CI: 1.59–4.47) had significantly better odds of having appropriate BMW disposal practices.

Conclusion

Our study shows that nearly during three-fourth of the observations, healthcare workers performed appropriate BMW disposal practices. However, measures should be taken to achieve 100% compliance by healthcare workers especially the target groups identified in our study by allocating appropriate resources and periodically monitor the BMW disposal practices.

Knowledge, attitude and practice towards bio-medical waste management among healthcare workers: a northern Saudi study

Background

Health care workers (HCWs) involved in day-to-day care and other healthcare activities play a significant role in biomedical waste (BMW) management. The World Health Organization stated some of the causes for the failure of BMW management, namely, lack of awareness of the health hazards related to BMW and inadequate trained HCWs in BMW management. The present study assessed knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) towards BMW management among the HCWs in northern Saudi Arabia.

Methodology

The present study assessed KAP through a self-administered and validated questionnaire. Using a multistage probability sampling method, 384 HCWs from different healthcare facilities participated in this survey. We performed binomial logistic regression analysis to find association between KAP subscales and sociodemographic characteristics. Spearman's correlation test was performed to find the strength and direction of correlation (rho) between KAP scores.

Results

Of the population studied, high knowledge, attitude, and practice scores were found in 47.1%, 65.1%, and 49.5% of the HCWs, respectively. The present study found that knowledge score was significantly higher among the age group from 30 to 39 years (ref: age less than 30 years: AOR = 2.25, 95% CI [1.05-4.85], p = 0.04) and non- Saudi nationals (ref: Saudi: AOR = 2.84, 95% CI [1.63-4.94], p < 0.001) The attitude score towards BMW management was significantly lower among the HCWs working in tertiary care settings (ref: PHC: AOR = 0.38, 95% CI [0.12-0.69], p = 0.01). Regarding the practice score, the male categories had a significantly higher score (ref: female: AOR = 1.82, 95% CI [1.19 -2.99], p = 0.02), while pharmacist (ref: physicians: AOR = 0.39, 95% CI [0.18-0.58], p = 0.02) and lab technicians (ref: physicians: AOR = 0.31, 95% CI [0.11-0.53], p = 0.02) had a significant lower practice score. The test results revealed a weak positive correlation of knowledge with the attitude scores (rho = 0.249, p = 0.001), and a moderately strong positive correlation was found between attitude and practice scores (rho = 0.432, p = 0.001).

Conclusion

This study suggests that a regular training program for the HCWs on BMW management is necessary through symposiums, role play, interactive lectures, and other feasible training methods. Furthermore, a multicentric prospective exploratory study is to be conducted in other regions of the KSA to understand the region-specific training needs of HCWs.