Pre-Experimental Study to Assess the Impact of Awareness Program on Practice Regarding Bio-Medical Waste Management among Staff Nurses at Selected Hospital Kashmir

Abstract

The aim of this study is to provide adequate awareness on practice among staff nurses regarding bio-medical waste management. Biomedical Wastes are those potential hazardous materials, consisting of solids, liquids, articles, sharps, and laboratory waste which pose a grave danger to the health of humans as well as other living organisms and  in some cases, it may be lethal too. It is extremely important that the waste must be properly managed and disposed of safely so as to prevent outbreak of infections to general public and in health care settings in a society. According to the Ministry of Environment and Forests gross generation of biomedical waste in India is 4, 05,702 kg/day of which only 2, 91,983 kg/day is disposed, which means that almost 28% of the wastes is left untreated. The medical personals are more to get infection if not properly categorized and managed.  T herefore, On the basis of these views a study was conducted to assess the impact of awareness program on practice regarding bio -medical waste management among staff nurses at selected hospital of Kashmir. For which 50 subjects were selected by purposive sampling technique. After data collection observational checklist was used to assess the practice among subjects. The data was analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistics by using chi-square and t-test. The findings revealed that the mean posttest practice level  score (15.80), standard deviation 1.979, was significantly higher than mean pretest practice level  score 13.96, standard deviation 3.319 among study subjects which indicated that observational checklist  was highly effective in enhancing the practice among staff nurses  at mean difference 1.84. The study also concluded that there were statistically no significant association between demographic variables (p=0.000) of staff nurses with their pre-test practice scores at 0.05 level of significance.