Awareness, practices & occupational hazards among incinerator workers in tertiary care hospitals of Rawalpindi and Islamabad

Abstract

Introduction: Hospital waste management implies the administration of waste delivered by hospitals utilizing methods that will look at the spread of illnesses. It is evident from the previously published literature that ninety percent of occupational accidents occur because of unsafe behavior and the factor of human error. Occupational health is an important issue in Pakistan because of the high rate of associated morbidity and mortality of exposed workers. Most of the workers face a great chance of chronic health issues due to less knowledge and unsafe behavior. So, the purpose of our study is to assess the awareness and practices of occupational hazards among incinerator workers in tertiary care hospitals of Rawalpindi and Islamabad. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in all the major public and private tertiary care hospitals of Rawalpindi and Islamabad. Overall, 89 Incinerator workers who were directly handling the waste, and were working for more than 3 months, were part of the study. Moreover, personnel from the administration and manager Staff of incinerator workers were also included. After getting approval from the institutional ethical review committee; the incinerator workers of all the major public and private hospitals of Rawalpindi and Islamabad were approached for this study after meeting the inclusion criteria they included in the research. Data was collected by a pre-formed questionnaire comprised of three parts: demographic variables, knowledge, and practices regarding occupational hazards and operational parameters of the incineration process. Data was entered and analyzed in SPSS 21 version. Results: A total of 89 participants were part of this research study. All the incinerator workers who are directly handling the waste of Public and Private hospitals in Islamabad and Rawalpindi were selected. Out of 89 participants if we talk about the age distribution then 17 (19.1 %) were between 20-30 years, 42 (47.2 %) were between 31-40 years, 26 (29.2 %) 41-50 years, and 4 (4.5 %) were 50+ years of age. Regarding the gender distribution among the data set, all the participants were males. out of 89 participants, 63 (70.8 %) were having Associate level of qualification, while 26 (29.2 %) had a bachelor's degree. Discussion: An Iranian study on educational attainment found that the majority of those in the study sample (56.5%) held a bachelor's degree. However, 60 (70.8%) of the participants in our study had associate's degrees. This finding contrasts with those of other regions of Iraq, where the majority of the investigated sample had a diploma; this difference may be explained by Baghdad's abundance of universities (Jibraeel & Abdulrahman, 2022). Another research study's findings showing employees have a "Good" attitude regarding occupational dangers at work v (Mahmood M, Shahab S, Malik R, 2001) are consistent with our study's findings because it also demonstrates that the majority of incineration workers are having "excellent" level performance. Conclusion: So the majority of hospital and health center staff have "excellent" attitudes and good practices with occupational dangers in their surrounding workplaces, there is still space for development in these areas. Examples of such behaviors include "prolonged standing" and "inadequate use of current facilities," as well as wearing goggles while incineration operations in the workplace were satisfactory. Age, education level, and working overtime all have an impact on how incinerator workers approach occupational dangers. Additionally, our study's incinerator workers' knowledge of workplace hazards was influenced by their age. This research’s result recommends that healthcare administrators and pertinent authorities organize active, efficient programs to advance the departments already operating in healthcare facilities dedicated to the prevention of occupational hazards, promote them to senior administrative positions, and give them the resources they need to implement and uphold occupational safety legislation in their facilities following established national and international standards. Keywords: Occupational Hazards; Incineration, KAP, Current practices, Health risks, Incinerators, Teaching hospitals, Populated areas, Twin Cities.