A study to assess the knowledge and practices regarding biomedical waste management among staff nurses at Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Zonal Hospital, Shimla, Himachal Pradesh

Biomedical waste is the waste generated during diagnose treatment of humans as well as animals from health care settings. It may include waste associated with generation of biomedical waste that usually appears to be medical or laboratory origin (e.g. packaging, unused bandages, infusion kits etc.) as well as research laboratory waste containing bio molecules or organism that are restricted from environmental release. Biomedical waste may be solid or liquid. Biomedical waste is hazardous and infectious, so it should be managed properly. So the proper handling and disposal of waste is called biomedical waste management. The present study was to assess knowledge and practices regarding biomedical waste management among the staff nudes of DEEN DAYAL UPADHAYA ZONAL HOSPITAL SHIMLA and 30 nurses were evaluated from different wards such as emergency department, General wards (male, female, paediatric and private wards) Gyne ward (labor room, postnatal ward, antenatal ward).The objective of the study was to assess the knowledge and practice regarding biomedical waste management among staff nurses of DEEN DAYAL UPADHAYA ZONAL HOSPITAL. Written permission was obtained from the head of hospital and verbal consent was taken from the study subjects before conducting the study. In the present study Quantitative approach and descriptive design was used. The sample used for the study was 30. Samples are selected by non- probability purposive sampling technique. The data obtained were compiled, tabulated and analyzed using by descriptive and inferential statically methods. The result of study shows that maximum of the nurses 18(60% Very good knowledge, 9(30%) having excellent knowledge level and minimum 3 (10%) having good knowledge score. For the practices maximum of the staff nurses 15 (50.1%) having excellent practice score, 14(36.6%) having very good practice score and minimum of the staff nurses 1(3.3%) having good practice score regarding the biomedical waste management. The correlation between the knowledge and practice score is 0.21 which is less than tabulated value with the degree of freedom of 28 which means that staff nurses had good knowledge but not following practices regarding biomedical waste management.