A prospective cross-sectional study on knowledge and practices of healthcare professionals on biomedical waste management from Nilgiris district, Tamilnadu

Abstract

This study was conducted to ascertain the knowledge and practices related to biomedical waste management in secondary care hospitals in our region. The required information was obtained using a simple questionnaire which included 2 parts, namely, knowledge and practices with 16 and 20 questions respectively. Out of the 80 respondents, 75 % were females. Nurses constituted a major fraction of healthcare professionals (70%) in hospitals. About 47.5% of the respondents had a working experience of 0-5 years. Females had better knowledge and practices in the disposal of medical wastes (91.14% and 94.998%) as compared to males (88.125% and 89%). There was a significant association of age with the knowledge (p= 0.013) and insignificant regarding practice (p= 0.998) of healthcare professionals. The knowledge and practices of all healthcare professionals were overall good. There was a significant association between a professional category of healthcare professionals with knowledge (p= 0.00000181) and practices (p= 0.003129) of medical waste disposal. The results of the investigation uncovered that healthcare professionals had great learning about the disposal of biomedical waste. It was additionally discovered that healthcare professionals adhered to the strategies and the rules related to biomedical waste management.