A Survey on Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Personnel Regarding Hospital Waste Management in Imam Hossein Educational Hospital of Kermanshah

Hospital wastes can be categorized as hazardous wastes due to their risks to the environment and human. Considering the fact that the hospital staff are in direct contact with biomedical wastes, their knowledge and safe operation are important in waste management. The aim of this study was to determine the status of knowledge, attitude and practice of healthcare staff of Imam Hossain Hospital of Kermanshah regarding biomedical waste management.

This was a descriptive cross-sectional study. The study population included healthcare and office staff of hospital with sample size of 149. The data collection tool was a questionnaire including four parts: demographic information as well as knowledge, performance and attitude questions.

The results of this study showed that there was a significant (p<0.05) relationship between the level of knowledge and practice of health staff for management of hospital wastes with gender, professional and educational courses. The level of knowledge and practice in women was higher than men, and in the third-grade staff (paraclinical) was more than other job grops. Based on the result, more paraclinical personnel (70.58%) had been engaged and completed their waste management training courses.

As the results, training can lead to increased knowledge and practice of health staff in waste management and have more important role than work experience and job group. Therefore, managers of hospitals should have a special and continuous planning in order to develop all aspects of waste management programs.