Abstract:
Introduction
The aim of the study was to determine the knowledge and practices of health care workers on
medical waste disposal at George Masebe Hospital, Waterberg District, Limpopo Province,
South Africa.
Method
A cross sectional study was conducted and simple random sampling was used to select
participants. Data was collected using self-administered questionnaire which where total of 141
participants were sampled using the Slovin formula. Data were analyzed using the IBM SPSS
Version 22 and both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to answer the study
objectives.
Results
The study shows that 43% of the respondents had good knowledge on medical waste disposal,
13% were not sure and 44% had insufficient knowledge. Forty nine percent (49%) of the
respondents practiced safe medical waste disposal, 4, 3% were moderate in practice and 46, 1%
had insufficient practice in place. There was no statistical significant relationship between
knowledge and practice of medical waste disposal control measures of health care workers.
Conclusion
The study concluded that knowledge of the respondents on medical waste disposal was
insufficient, there were satisfactory medical waste practices and there was no relationship
between knowledge and practice.
