Determinants of Medical Waste Management Practices Among Primary Healthcare Workers in Port Harcourt Metropolis, Rivers State, Nigeria

When medical waste generated from a health facility is not managed properly, it can be hazardous to the environment. This study focused on determinants of medical waste management among primary healthcare workers in Port Harcourt Metropolis, Rivers State. Six objectives, six research questions and five hypotheses were stated to guide the study. Literature was reviewed under conceptual framework, theoretical framework and empirical review. The study adopted descriptive correlational study design. The population of study are 2,605 primary healthcare workers in Port Harcourt Metropolis. The sample size was 382 healthcare workers selected using the multistage sampling procedure. The instrument for data collection was a self-structured questionnaire titled 'Medical waste Management Questionnaire (MWMQ)', with a reliability co-efficient of 0.72. Data collected were analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 27.0, and results were presented as means and Pearson Correlations at the 0.05 level of significance. The result showed that the extent to which medical waste management was practiced among primary healthcare workers in Port Harcourt Metropolis was high (3.49±0.81). The result further showed that there was a statistically significant relationship between practice of medical waste management and knowledge (r-value = 0.48; n = 367; p = 0.00), availability of waste management resources (r-value = 0.65; n = 367; p = 0.00), accessibility of waste management resources (r-value = 0.51; n = 367; p = 0.00), and years of work experience (r-value = 0.47; n = 367; p = 0.00). It was concluded that, the determinants of medical waste management were: knowledge of waste management, availability of waste management resources, accessibility of waste management resources, and years of work experience. It is recommended among others that, the primary health care management board should ensure that colour coded wastes bins are not lacking, by supplying them timely to the health facilities to ensure that the health care workers do not find it difficult to segregate the medical wastes generated.