Comparative Studies on Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Health Workers towards Medical Waste Management in Two Developed Regions of the World

Background: Worldwide, healthcare waste still remains a challenge to public health and potential source of hazard to biosphere. Assessment of knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) of healthcare workers towards healthcare waste management was carried out in Sweden and Hungary for comparative analysis.

Methods: Data was collected using a pretested questionnaire and analyzed using spss version 20.0. Total Sample size of 210 was used for the study; comprising of 105 from each area.

Results: In Hungary, 11(10.5%) were male while 94(89.5%) were female. While Sweden comprised of 28(26.7%) male and 77(73.3%) female. In Sweden frequencies of 5.7%, 56.2%, 22.9%, 3.8%, 6.7% and 4.8% were recorded for age groups of <20 years, 20-30years, 31-40years, 41-50years,51-60years and ≥61years respectively. While amongst the Hungarian respondents, the respective age groups yielded frequencies of 1.0%, 18.1%, 21.0%, 36.2%, 17.1% and 6.7% respectively(p<0.05).More Doctors(63.8%) and Nurses(63.8%) in Hungary participated in the study than in Sweden(Doctors=15.2%;.Nurses=15.2%). The proportion of medical students was highest (32.4%) in Sweden than in Hungary (7.6%). According to educational qualifications, respondents with Bachelors degree occurred most in equal proportion (50.5%) in the two study areas. While those with doctorate degree recorded highest frequency of 11.4% in Sweden and least (1.0)% in Hungary. Respondents with masters degree occurred with frequencies of 27.6% and 21.0% in Hungary Sweden respectively. Result of respondents’ knowledge on healthcare waste shows that in Hungary, 81% of the respondents affirmed they are aware of waste management guidelines used in their hospital while in Sweden the proportion was 51.4%. Conversely, 19.0% of respondents from Hungary said they are not aware while in Sweden it was 26.7% and the remaining proportion (21.9%) said they don’t have idea. Where waste disposal guidelines exist, only 43.8% of Swedish respondents said they are aware of the contents while in Hungary, the proportion is high (81.0%). Those that responded “no” to the question;-meaning they are not aware of such guidelines occurred most (37.1%) in Sweden than in hungary(11.4%), though the proportion that said they don’t have idea is low in Hungary(7.6%) than in Sweden(19.0%) (P<0.05).Also from the result, few proportion (19.0% in Hungary; 24.8% in Sweden) of the respondents believed that disposal of hazardous waste is extra burden to them. While most of the respondents (76.2% in Hungary; 48.6% in Sweden) said “no” to the question;- meaning that disposal of hazardous waste is not extra burden to them. More (68.6%) of the respondents from Hungary said they have been educated/trained on waste handling than the Swedish respondents where 54.3% had education/training on waste handling. The proportion that was not trained was high in Sweden (41.9%) than Hungary (31.4%). However, knowledge and attitude on healthcare waste management yielded high percentage rating scores for Hungarian respondents than those of Sweden. On the contrary, Swedish respondents demonstrated more practice than Hungarian counterparts in the area of HBV vaccination (Sweden=90.5%; Hungary=6.7%), use of personal protective equipment (Sweden=93.3%; Hungary=91.4%), change of personal protective equipment (Sweden=52.4%; Hungary=19.0%).

Conclusion: Good knowledge and attitude was noted in the two areas but more in Hungary while Practice was mostly demonstrated in Sweden. This stands as a useful tool to relevant stakeholders in health sectors in the two areas.