Factors affecting practice of infectious wastes management of dental professionals

Eun-Bi Lee; Jong-Hwa Jang

doi:10.11149/jkaoh.2018.42.4.175

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Lee and Jang: Factors affecting practice of infectious wastes management of dental professionals

Original Article

Journal of Korean Academy of Oral Health 2018; 42(4): 175-180.

Published online: 28 December 2018

DOI: https://doi.org/10.11149/jkaoh.2018.42.4.175

Factors affecting practice of infectious wastes management of dental professionals

Eun-Bi Lee¹, Jong-Hwa Jang²

¹Department of Dental Hygiene, Hanseo University, Seosan, Korea.

²Department of Dental Hygiene, College of Health Science, Dankook University, Cheonan, Korea.

Corresponding Author: Jong-Hwa Jang. Department of Dental Hygiene, College of Health Science, Dankook University, 119 Dandae-ro, Dongnam-gu, Cheonan 31119, Korea. Tel: +82-41-550-1495, Fax: +82-41-550-1495, jhj@dankook.ac.kr

Received 17 August 2018 Revised 15 October 2018 Accepted 15 October 2018

Journal of Korean Academy of Oral Health

(open-access):

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Objectives

This study aimed to evaluate the relationship between oral health professionals' knowledge, attitude, and practice with regard to infectious waste management and to identify related factors influencing it.

Methods

The study comprised of 219 oral health professionals from select dental clinics and public health centers recruited between August 25, 2016 and September 5, 2016, who agreed to participate in the study with full understanding of the study objectives. A self-reported questionnaire was administered, which consisted of 22 items on knowledge of infectious waste management, 9 items on attitude, and 16 items on practice. Data were analyzed using Pearson's correlation coefficient and stepwise multiple regression analyses.

Results

The age, knowledge, and clinical attitude of oral health professionals significantly correlated with waste management practice. Specifically, infectious waste management practice improved with increasing age, a greater level of knowledge, and a more positive clinical attitude. Additionally, the standardized regression coefficient demonstrated that, of these three factors, clinical attitude more strongly correlated with effective waste management practice, followed by age and level of knowledge.

Conclusions

These results indicated that oral health professionals had a low level of knowledge regarding infectious waste management, and a more positive clinical attitude resulted in better practices. Therefore, the development of detailed and active education guidelines and strategies are needed to enhance the attitude, knowledge, and practice of oral health professionals with regard to infectious waste management.

Keywords: Attitude, Infectious waste management, Knowledge, Practice

Figures and Tables

Table 1

Validity test of attitude items for infectious waste

KMO=0.887, Bartlett's test=953.655, P<0.001.

Table 2

Knowledge, attitude and practice about infectious waste management

Table 3

Practice of infectious wastes according to general characteristics

^*by indipendent t-test or one way ANOVA test.

^a,bMeans followed by different letters are significantly different at α=0.05.

Table 4

Relationships among the knowledge, attitude, and practices of hospital infectious wastes

^*P<0.05, ^**P<0.01 by Pearson's correlation analysis at α=0.05.

Table 5

Predictors influencing to practices for hospital infectious wastes management

^*by Stepwise multiple regression at α=0.05.

Notes

This manuscript is a revision of the first author's Master's thesis from Hanseo University.

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