International Journal of Environmental Science and Development

Abstract—Clinical waste is increasing significant health hazards and environmental pollution concern due to its characteristics of the infectious waste. The personnel practice in infectious waste management is a necessary primary step requires for initiating effective management of clinical waste management. Therefore, this study is aimed to assess Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices (KAP) in handling infectious waste among personnel in clinics located in Mueang Phuket District, Phuket, Thailand. A simple random sampling was used to identify 284 respondents from 142 clinics with a response rate of 85.2% by face-to-face interview with healthcare workers. The results showed that the majority of respondents were female (85.5%), aged between 20-29 years old (36.0%). Most of respondents were medical assistants/nurses/laboratory scientists (60.8%) with more than 5 years working experience (55.4%) and had the experience in handling infectious waste (72.3%) and participated training in infectious waste management (54.5%). The overall scores for knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) of respondents in clinic regarding infectious waste management are in a high level (88.4%, 90.9%, and 92.2%, respectively). It is suggested that Phuket Municipality should has a well-planned collection and transfer process of infectious wastes in order to reduce the risk of environmental pollution, public health and healthcare workers.

Index Terms—Clinical waste management, healthcare workers, Phuket.

Husna Romin is with the Faculty of Technology and Environment, Prince of Songkla University, Phuket Campus, Phuket 83120, Thailand (e-mail: husna.r@outlook.com).
Pensiri Akkajit is with Integrated Science and Technology Research Center (Applied Chemistry/Environmental Management/Software Engineering), Prince of Songkla University, Phuket Campus, Phuket 83120, Thailand; Faculty of Technology and Environment, Prince of Songkla University, Phuket Campus; Research Program of Toxic Substance Management in the Mining Industry, Center of Excellence on Hazardous Substance Management (HSM), Bangkok 10330, Thailand; Research Unit of Site Remediation on Metals Management from Industry and Mining (Site Rem), Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok 10330, Thailand (e-mail: pensiri.a@phuket.psu.ac.th).

[PDF]

Cite: Husna Romin and Pensiri Akkajit, "A Study of Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice (KAP) of Personnel in Clinic Regarding Infectious Waste Management Case Study: Mueang Phuket District, Phuket," International Journal of Environmental Science and Development vol. 9, no. 6, pp. 152-156, 2018.