Department of Medical Laboratory Sciences, College of Health Science, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
PLoS One. 2022 Apr 28;17(4):e0266888. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0266888. eCollection 2022.
Biomedical wastes (BMWs) generated from medical laboratories are hazardous and can endanger both humans and the environment. Highly infectious biomedical wastes are produced at an unacceptably high rate from health laboratories in developing countries with poor management systems, such as Ethiopia. The purpose of this study was to assess the rate of biomedical waste generation, management practices, and associated factors in public healthcare medical laboratories in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
From July 13 to September 25, 2020, a health institution-based cross-sectional study was conducted in 6 hospital laboratories and 20 health centres laboratories in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Data on socio-demographic characteristics, knowledge and practice of biomedical waste management and generation rate were collected d in health facilities using pre tested data collection tools. SPSS version 20 was used to manage the data. To identify independent predictors of the dependent variable, descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation, linear, and logistic regression analysis were used. The strength of the association was determined using an odds ratio with a 95% confidence interval.
In this study, the mean ± SD daily generation rate of biomedical wastes was 4.9 ± 3.13 kg/day per medical laboratory. Nineteen medical laboratories (74.3%) had proper biomedical waste management practice, which is significantly associated with professionals' knowledge of biomedical waste management policies and guidelines, the availability of separate financial sources for biomedical waste management, and the level of training of professionals.
The study found that medical laboratories in Addis Ababa's public healthcare facilities generate a significant amount of biomedical waste. Nearly two-thirds of hospitals performed proper waste segregation, collection, storage, and treatment procedures for biomedical waste generated in their laboratories. However, there was a poor transportation and disposal method. As a result, paying special attention and implementing the current national guidelines for biomedical waste management is recommended.
医疗实验室产生的生物医学废物（BMW）具有危害性，会危及人类和环境。在埃塞俄比亚等管理系统较差的发展中国家，卫生实验室产生的高传染性生物医学废物的比例高得令人无法接受。本研究旨在评估埃塞俄比亚亚的斯亚贝巴市公立医疗保健实验室的生物医学废物产生率、管理做法和相关因素。
2020 年 7 月 13 日至 9 月 25 日，在埃塞俄比亚亚的斯亚贝巴市的 6 家医院实验室和 20 家卫生中心实验室进行了一项基于卫生机构的横断面研究。使用预先测试的数据收集工具在卫生设施中收集了关于社会人口特征、生物医学废物管理知识和实践以及生物医学废物产生率的数据。使用 SPSS 版本 20 来管理数据。为了确定因变量的独立预测因子，使用描述性统计、Pearson 相关、线性和逻辑回归分析。使用优势比及其 95%置信区间来确定关联的强度。
在这项研究中，每个医疗实验室每天产生的生物医学废物的平均（±SD）量为 4.9 ± 3.13kg/天。19 家医疗实验室（74.3%）有适当的生物医学废物管理做法，这与专业人员对生物医学废物管理政策和准则的知识、单独的生物医学废物管理财务来源的可用性以及专业人员的培训水平显著相关。
该研究发现，亚的斯亚贝巴市公立医疗设施的医疗实验室产生了大量的生物医学废物。近三分之二的医院对实验室产生的生物医学废物进行了适当的废物分类、收集、储存和处理程序。然而，运输和处理方法却很差。因此，建议特别注意并实施当前的国家生物医学废物管理指南。
