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

Ashokkumar Thirunavukkarasu; Ahmad Homoud Al-Hazmi; Umar Farooq Dar; Ahmed Mohammed Alruwaili; Saleh Dhifallah Alsharari; Fahad Adel Alazmi; Saif Farhan Alruwaili; Abdullah Mohammed Alarjan

doi:10.7717/peerj.13773

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

PeerJ. 2022 Jul 20:10:e13773. doi: 10.7717/peerj.13773. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Ashokkumar Thirunavukkarasu¹, Ahmad Homoud Al-Hazmi¹, Umar Farooq Dar¹, Ahmed Mohammed Alruwaili², Saleh Dhifallah Alsharari², Fahad Adel Alazmi², Saif Farhan Alruwaili², Abdullah Mohammed Alarjan²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Community and Family Medicine, College of Medicine, Jouf University, Sakaka, Aljouf, Saudi Arabia.
² Medical Student, College of Medicine, Jouf University, Sakaka, Aljouf, Saudi Arabia.

Abstract

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.

Keywords: Attitude; Biomedical waste; Correlation; Healthcare workers; Knowledge; Practice.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Adult
Female
Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice
Health Personnel
Humans
Male
Medical Waste*
Prospective Studies
Saudi Arabia / epidemiology
Waste Management*

Substances

Medical Waste

Grants and funding

This work was funded by the Deanship of Scientific Research at Jouf University under grant number (DSR-2021-01-03144). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.