Abstract:
Background: Waste generated in hospital is often synonymously used as health-care waste,
hospital waste, medical waste, and infectious waste due to the fact that waste is being generated
from medical care provision services to the patients. It is a global hazard to health care workers,
patients and environment. Thus, it is imperative to know the level of hospital waste management
practice and associated factors among health care workers of public hospital in south west shoa
zone for better intervention.
Objective: To assess hospital waste management practice and its associated factors among
healthcare workers in South West Shoa Zone hospitals, Ethiopia, 2019.
Methods: - Facility based cross sectional study design was conducted in 4 (four) public hospitals
under the study area. A total of 336 health care workers were included in the study from March
5-30/2019. Data were collected with self-administered questionnaire and observational checklist.
The coded data were entered on to computer using Epi data version 3.1software and exported to
SPSS version 25. The data were analyzed descriptively for socio demographic and other study
variables. Descriptive statics such as frequency and percentage was used in the form of text and
table. Binary logistic regression was used to check the association between variables. 95%
Confident interval was used to determine the strength of association between variables.
Result: Of the total 168 (47.6%) respondents were implementing a proper practice for hospital
waste management. Low knowledge and lack of training of healthcare workers were
significantly associated with the practice of hospital waste management. HCW who were
categorized as knowledgeable were 2 times more likely to practice proper health care waste
management than health care workers categorized as poor knowledge {(AOR: 2.315, 95%
CI. (1.133, 4.732)}. Health care workers who took training {(AOR: 3.958, 95% CI. (2.390 –
6.540)} were 4 times more likely practiced hospital waste management than health care
workers did not took training on HCWM.
Conclusion: The current study revealed that there is improper practice of healthcare workers to
wards hospital waste management and hospitals have to work on awareness creation program for
their HCWs on proper practice of HWM.
