Assessment of Health Care Workers’ Knowledge Attitudes and Practices for Effective Management of Biomedical Waste in Dodoma City Tanzania.

Edward, Augustine (2021) Assessment of Health Care Workers’ Knowledge Attitudes and Practices for Effective Management of Biomedical Waste in Dodoma City Tanzania. Masters thesis, The Open University of Tanzania.

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Abstract

Biomedical waste mismanagement has been and continues to be a hazardous health risk to health personnel and the general public. This study endeavoured to identify and assess the gaps in knowledge, attitudes and practices or actions by the full range of health care workers involved in waste management with particular focus on those handling biomedical wastes. A total of 142 health care workers participated in the study. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected and analysed using descriptive statistical techniques guided by the Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 20. The findings indicated that 96.5% of health care workers were aware that improper management of biomedical wastes is likely to cause various health hazards. Indeed 97.9% of study participants indicated that mismanagement of biomedical wastes resulted in environmental problems. Dump the waste directly into garbage bins for removal and direct incineration were mostly used as methods of wastes disposal by 73.2%. A significant proportion of staff (80.3%) had not received adequate training related to biomedical waste management. On average it was interesting that most of health workers in Dodoma city had positive attitude and mindsets for safe management of health waste, example 79.6% were believed that waste management is a team work practice and 85.2% were believed that waste management is not an extra burden on work. It was, therefore, recommended that training and public awareness promotion should be put in place for the proper handling and management of biomedical wastes and that this is a necessary requirement for all workers in health care systems in Dodoma as well as other cities and towns in the country. Keywords: Biomedical Waste, Health Care, Knowledge, Management.

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