Bio-Medical Waste Management Rules 2016. Are the Health Care Workers Aware? – Evaluation of an Intervention.

Abstract

Background: Biomedical waste has become a crucial health hazard in many countries including India. Careless and indiscriminate disposal of these wastes can contribute to the spread of serious diseases. The new guideline of Bio-Medical Waste Management Rules -2016 was released on March, 2016 and revised in 2018. In order to update the new rules periodically, the present study was carried out with the aim to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice on biomedical waste management among health care workers working in a tertiary hospital in Puducherry and to evaluate the effectiveness of sensitisation program regarding 2016 Bio-medical waste management rules.
 Methods: All staff nurses and nursing assistants working at SVMCH & RC, Puducherry were included. Study period was between August and October 2016. About 103 willing participants were included.The participants were assessed by pre-test and post-test with a semi-structured questionnaire. Dataanalysed using SPSS (version 23).Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to compare pre-test and post-test score. Chi-square and Fisher’s exact tests were applied to find the significant difference before and after intervention.
 Results:Among total participants (103), 83.5% of the participants were Staff Nurses, 10.7% Female Nursing Assistant and rest Auxiliary Nursing Mid-wife. About 68 % of them have reported that it is the sole responsibility of the Government in proper management of Bio-medical waste and 27.2% of them reported that procedures involved in Bio-Medical Waste Management (BMWM) are increasing the financial burden of their hospital.Regarding identification of the symbol of bio-hazard, there was a significant increase in knowledge in the post-test when compared to the pre-test. About 40.8% (42) of participants had poor knowledge about BMW in pre test. Regarding attitude and practice, in the pre-test, around 59% have said that they will report about any injury due to or during wrong disposal whereas in the post-test it has been increased to 78% which is statistically significant (p<0.05). About 89.3% of the participants reported that they are having the practice of wearing gloves while handling BMW in pre-test whereas in the post-test, 94.2% has reported. Overall mean and standard deviation of pre-test and post-test scores regarding BMW shows a statistically significant improvement in KAP score regarding biomedical waste management and new rules in the post-test after interventionthan the pre-test.
 Conclusions:The knowledge of the participants regarding management of bio-medical waste is still in its childhood stage.There was an evident increase after administration of sensitisation program.