The Efficacy of a Waste Management Educational Interventional Program among Cleaners at a Sudanese Pediatric Teaching Hospital
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47363/JMHC/2022(4)188Keywords:
Waste Management, Interventional Program, Cleaners, OmdurmanAbstract
Background: Hospitals are complicated entities that encompass numerous individuals from many cultures, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, or belief (patients and caregivers). Health care personnel, patients, clients, and others who encounter infectious and hazardous waste, including garbage collectors, rag pickers, cleaners, and the environment, can all experience substantial health implications. In waste management, the amount of information and awareness of health staff is fundamental. The focus of the current study is to find how an intervention program regarding health care waste management impacts the knowledge and practice of cleaners at Mohamed Al-Amin Hamid Pediatric Hospital.
Methods: The study was a hospital-based interventional trial that involved 52 cleaners at Mohamed Al-Amin Hamid Pediatric Hospital. Information was acquired from participants using a standardized questionnaire. A tailored educational program pertaining to efficient medical waste handling was implemented for the cleaners in the group based on needs assessment. After a one-month evaluation, the approach was carried out using the same questionnaire to estimate the impact of the program on cleaners, and the information was then loaded into a statistical package for social sciences (SPSS Statistics 23, IBM®).
Results: The mean point of the entire knowledge and practice issues in the questionnaire was used to compute the knowledge and practice score. The overall scores for knowledge and practice were 21 and 15, respectively. In the pre-test before the interventional educational program, knowledge and practice were reported at (10.4, and 7.1) or (49 %, and 47%), respectively, and in the post-test after the interventional educational program, knowledge and practice were reported at (19, and 14.2) or (90%, and 94%), respectively. The findings indicate that the interventional program significantly increased cleaner knowledge and practice levels by 41% and 47%, respectively, with a p-value of 0.001.
Conclusion: The educational program was efficient, according to the study, and had an influence on cleaners’ knowledge and practices, which improved by 41% and 47%, respectively.