Knowledge and Practice Towards Medical Waste Mangment and its Associated Factors among Health Care Workers at Public Hospitals Addis Abeba Ethiopia
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Date
2021-05
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
In Ethiopia, medical waste management has become a problem due to an ever-increasingnumber of hospitals, clinics, diagnostic laboratories and other health care services.Although health care workers are one key personnel for the proper management of medicalwastes at any health facilities, their level of performance depends on their level ofknowledge, practice and some related factors regarding medical waste management. AQuantitative institutional based cross sectional study and a qualitative observational studywas conducted and a total of 627 health care workers from 4 public hospitals at AddisAbaba, Ethiopia, were included. Study participants were allocated proportionally based onthe number of healthcare workers from each hospital and profession. Data were collectedusing pre-tested self-administered structured questionnaires and observational checklists.The collected data was analyzed using SPSS version25.0. Multivariable logistic regressionmodel was used to identify factors associated with knowledge and practice of healthcareworkers. Out of the total respondents, 52.7% and 51.5% of health care workers hadadequate knowledge and adequate practice towards medical waste management,respectively. Hospital working hours of 8 per day [AOR=1.5, 95% CI (1.09, 2.18)],Getting MWM information from guidelines [AOR=1.54, 95% CI (1.087, 2.189)] andadequate practice score [AOR = 2.14, 95% CI (1.50, 3.02)] were significantly associatedwith the knowledge level of health care workers. On the other hand, HCWs working atSaint peter hospital [AOR=4.1, 95%CI (2.78-7.75)], professional categories,Doctors[(AOR=3.8,95%CI(1.2-12.70],Nurse[(AOR=4.4(1.38-13.8)]MTs [(AOR=9,95%CI(2.3-44.9)], getting medical waste management information from training[AOR=2.1,95%CI(1.58-3.50), getting medical waste management information fromothers[(AOR=0.49,95%CI(0.25,0.95)], presence of MWM guidelines inhospital[(AOR=1.73, 95%CI(1.04,2.88)] and adequate knowledge score[(AOR=2.10,95%CI(1.45-3.048)] were significantly associated with practice level ofhealth care workers. In this study, both knowledge and practice level of health care workerstowards medical waste management were not satisfactory. To improve better, proper and intensive job training is recommended.
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knowledge, practice, medical waste, waste management, health care worker