Self assessment of behavior in infections waste management by health care workers of national referal hospital, Thimphu, Bhutan

Abstract

Inadequate and inappropriate handling of infectious wastes could result in serious public health consequences and significant negative impact on the environment. The behavior and factors relating to it, among health care workers in proper management of infectious waste at national referral hospital Thimphu, Bhutan was studied from 5th to 10th May 2004. This is a cross sectional descriptive study. 283 health workers participated in the study. Self-administered questionnaire was used to obtain information from 36 doctors, 112 nurses and 80 technicians. The information from 55 auxiliary staff was obtained through structured questionnaire by two trained interviewers. The completed questionnaires were coded and entered into SPSS and was analyzed. The mean knowledge scores were 8.42, 9.21, 9.94 for auxiliary, technicians, nurses and doctors respectively from total of 10 scores. The mean attitude scores were 41.82, 41.93, 43.42 and 44.91 for auxiliary, technicians, nurses and doctors respectively. The mean behavior scores were 44.48, 42.11, 42.10 and 43.35 for auxiliary, technicians, nurses and doctors respectively from total of 50 scores. Socio-demographic factors like age, gender, level of education, job category, waste management training and duration in service were not significantly associated with behavior. Knowledge and attitude level of professionals was higher than auxiliary staff with significant difference (p<.001). The behavior of auxiliary staff was slightly higher than that of professionals but there was no significant difference statistically (p=.350). On policy content, manual on infectious waste management has been ranked top by all health workers. On deployment of policy, availability of PPE and other equipment had been ranked top two. About 9.54% of the respondents did not give any recommendation, 22.61% respondent made one recommendation and 67.84% of respondents gave two recommendations. 21 different recommendations have been received. It is suggested that national referral hospital should have a policy and implement the policy through proper strategies to improve the infectious waste management of the hospital.