Knowledge, Attitude And Practices Regarding Management Of Biomedical Waste Among House Officer And Nursing Staff In Teaching Hospitals Of District South, Karachi

Objective: To determine the knowledge, attitude and practices regarding management of biomedical waste among the house officers and nursing staff in teaching hospitals of District South, Karachi. Methods: A cross sectional knowledge, attitude and practice survey was conducted from November 2018 to April 2019 among the house officer and the nursing staff working at different teaching hospitals of District South, Karachi. A total of 196 house officers and staff nurses were included in the study after checking their eligibility. A structured questionnaire was used by the principal investigator to interview the study participants. SPSS version 20 was used for data entry with chi-square test applied for inferential analysis. A p-value <0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: The mean age of the participants was 23.13 +/- 10.28 years whereas 116 (59.2%) of them were females. The study results showed that only 59.2% (n= 58) of the house officers and 54.1% (n= 53) of the nursing staff disposed of biomedical waste in specified color coded containers whereas only 51.0% (n= 50) of the house officers and 45.9% (n= 45) of the nursing staff segregated the biomedical waste according to different categories. Moreover, 139 (70.9%) participants had adequate knowledge, 171 (87.2%) participants had adequate attitude whereas 127 (64.8%) participants had adequate practices regarding biomedical waste management Furthermore, only the age of the study participants was significantly associated with the knowledge level (p=0.020) whereas none of the participant characteristics were found to be significantly associated with their attitude and practices. Conclusion: It was found that a majority of study participants had adequate knowledge, attitude and practices regarding biomedical waste management. Moreover, their age was found to be significantly associated with their knowledge level though none of their characteristics were found to be significantly associated with their attitude and practices.