Knowledge regarding Bio-Medical waste management among healthcare workers of tertiary care hospitals of Meerut, U.P.

The knowledge regarding biomedical waste management among healthcare personnel have greater impact on health and environment. Lack of awareness has led to the hospitals becoming a hub of spreading disease rather than working towards eradicating them.

To find out the level of knowledge regarding biomedical waste management among healthcare workers

The present cross sectional study was conducted from march 2016 to February 2017among healthcare workers of tertiary care hospitals of Meerut city. Simple random sampling was used for the selection of hospitals. All the healthcare workers of tertiary care hospitals who were present and gave consent during the study (2 visits were done). Data was analysed using SPSS version 19 and Pearson's Chi square test was applied.

Awareness regarding biomedical waste was present in all the health care workers (100.0%). Almost (97.5%) all the healthcare workers mentioned hospital waste as a biomedical waste and only 2.5% mentioned factory and agricultural waste as a biomedical waste. According to 99.7% and 93.3% healthcare workers, biomedical waste should be carried in closed container and infectious waste should not be thrown in general waste respectively. Majority of the healthcare workers mentioned HIV, HEP B and HCV as diseases of biomedical waste (81.7%, 78.6% and 75.4% respectively).

Knowledge regarding biomedical waste disposal among nursing staff is satisfactory compared to other healthcare workers, adequate training among health care workers can improve the biomedical waste management and handling practices at hospital settings.