Effectiveness of planned teaching programme regarding awareness of biomedical waste management, among paramedical & sanitary staff in hospitals of Ujjain city

Abstract

Background: Almost 80% of health care waste is comparable to domestic waste; the remaining approximately 20% is considered hazardous, as it may be infectious, toxic and/or radioactive. Infectious and anatomic wastes together represent most of the hazardous waste, up to 15% of the total waste from healthcare activities.Developed countries generate on an average up to 0.5 kg of hazardous waste per bed per day; Whereas developing countries generate on an average 0.2 kg of hazardous waste per hospital bed per day & this figure for India is 0.33 million ton biomedical waste per year, mounting to 1-2 kg per day per bed.Improper management of biomedical waste poses a significant hazardous risk to the patients, healthcare workers, the community and environment. Based on the review of the literature and the observation, we concluded that there is a need to educate the health team members regarding biomedical waste management as an effective strategy to improve the prevailing health care. Aim: To find out the effectiveness of planned teaching programme regarding awareness of biomedical waste management, among paramedical staff in hospitals of Ujjain city by comparison of pre & post-intervention data.Material and methods: An Interventional study was carried out among paramedical (Nursing staff & lab technicians) & sanitary staff of Government and private hospitals of Ujjain city from1^st January 2013 to 30^th November 2013. Total sample size 400 was taken. Study subjects were selected by the convenience sampling method. A self-administered semi-structured questionnaire based on previously developed validated tools was used to collect the information. Data were collected through personal interviews. Statistical analysis was done by SPSS 16.0 and chi-square test. Results: Pre-test mean knowledge, attitude & practice score among study participants regarding biomedical waste management was found 15.74±3.20 (mean ± SD) out of the total score of 28. Post-test mean score was increased up to 20.49 ±3.05 (mean ± SD). The difference between pre-test and post-test scores was found very highly significant (t = -29.893, P=0.000). It reveals that training programme regarding biomedical waste management was very effective in improving the knowledge, attitude & practice of the study participants. Conclusion & Recommendations: The results of this study had demonstrated a lack of awareness of most aspects of BMW management among study participants before training, very encouraging results were observed after the training programme as the highly significant improvement was observed in knowledge, attitude & practice of the study participants towards the most aspects of biomedical waste management. This study recommends periodic training workshop on BMW to reinforce and update knowledge of hospital employees regarding BMW management.