Abstract

Clinical waste is increasing significant healthhazards and environmental pollution concern due to itscharacteristics of the infectious waste. The personnel practice ininfectious waste management is a necessary primary steprequires for initiating effective management of clinical wastemanagement. Therefore, this study is aimed to assessKnowledge, Attitudes, and Practices (KAP) in handlinginfectious waste among personnel in clinics located in MueangPhuket District, Phuket, Thailand. A simple random samplingwas used to identify 284 respondents from 142 clinics with aresponse rate of 85.2% by face-to-face interview withhealthcare workers. The results showed that the majority ofrespondents were female (85.5%), aged between 20-29 years old(36.0%). Most of respondents were medicalassistants/nurses/laboratory scientists (60.8%) with more than 5years working experience (55.4%) and had the experience inhandling infectious waste (72.3%) and participated training ininfectious waste management (54.5%). The overall scores forknowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) of respondents inclinic regarding infectious waste management are in a high level(88.4%, 90.9%, and 92.2%, respectively). It is suggested thatPhuket Municipality should has a well-planned collection andtransfer process of infectious wastes in order to reduce the riskof environmental pollution, public health and healthcareworkers.