Abstract
Background: Infection control is a major component in health care practices. The health care team while providing services of curative, promotive or preventive, inevitably create waste and also cause injury which may be hazardous to health. Poor waste management practices pose a huge risk to the health of public, patients, professionals and also contribute to environmental degradation. Nurses as the part of health care personnel is expected to have proper knowledge, practice, and 6 capacity to guide others for waste collection, management, and proper handling techniques.
Method: A descriptive study was conducted to assess the knowledge of nurses on biomedical waste Management, spillage management and to determine needle stick injury among 210 registered nurses working in various wards of selected hospital. The convenient sampling technique was used to select the subjects. Baseline proforma and structured knowledge questionnaire was used to collect the data and data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics.
Result: In this study it has been found that the majority of staff nurses (78.6%) had good level of knowledge, 18.1% had very good level of knowledge and 3.33% had satisfactory level of knowledge on Biomedical Waste and Spillage Management and Needle Stick Injury.
Conclusion: The findings of the study have shown that majority of staff nurses have good level of knowledge on Biomedical Waste and Spillage Management and Needle Stick Injury.
A Descriptive Study to Assess the Practice of Biomedical Waste Management among Staff Nurses at Base Hospital Kalmunai (North), Sri Lanka
