Evaluation of Hospital Waste Collection Safety Measures by Cleaning Staff of Public Hospitals Affiliated with Tehran University of Medical Sciences, 2012

Hospital waste need a very sensitive and cautious attention due to holding hazardous, toxic, and pathogenic factors such as infectious, pharmaceutical, pathological, chemical and radioactive left-overs. Thus, this study aimed to evaluate the observance of safety measures by workers responsible for collecting hospital wastes in the public hospitals affiliated to Tehran University of medical sciences. Methods and Materials: This cross-sectional and descriptive-analytic study was conducted in 1391. Data were collected through using a questionnaire. According to the frequency distribution, total score for participants was divided into three weak (<26), average (26-30), and high (>30) categories. Data were analyzed by the SPSS 18 software using T-Test, one-way ANOVA and regression analysis. Based on the results, 33.3% of hospitals received suitable, 55.5% received average and the remaining (11.2%) received a weak score regarding safety measures. Moreover, there was a statistically significant correlation between cleaning staff’s characteristics (education, age, work experiences and their training) with their safety status score. Implementing current national principles and standards and conquering shortages, proper planning, using young workers alongside with experienced ones, more training courses and respecting and paying enough attention to cleaning staff would help to improve the safety of collecting hospital wastes.