Current status of biomedical waste management practices and barriers among private Jordanian dental clinics: A cross-sectional investigation of the capital Amman

Abstract

Biomedical waste management (BMWM) is vital in facilitating safe providing of healthcare. Developing countries suffer from the impact of mishandled biomedical waste (BMW) on the general public in addition to healthcare practitioners. Thus, this study aims to investigate the awareness and compliance of dental facilities to BMW regulations. Through a questionnaire designed as per the WHO guidelines on BMWM, we randomly recruited a total of 421 dental facilities representative of Jordan’s capital. Mean BMWM practice scores were relatively high for the studied sample (0.748 ± 0.12). Nonetheless, while collection, transportation and storage standards were acceptable, those pertaining to segregation and disposal demonstrated lack of compliance to BMWM safety measures. An alarming number of participants dispose of infectious waste (40%), extracted teeth (48.5%), expired pharmaceuticals (44.4%), liquid chemicals (53.2%), X-ray films (35.0%) and solutions (48.7%) in the general trash or draining system. Such is attributed to either lack of resources, lack of proper equipment or poor awareness with BMWM guidelines. Moreover, it appears that location of the clinic (p < 0.001), occupation (p = 0.026) and presence of regulatory instructions (p = 0.048) were associated with higher BMWM scores. Overall, dental practitioners require proper training in terms of handling hazardous dental, chemical and radioactive wastes. Moreover, regulatory bodies should actively enforce regulations and monitoring, update current compliance legislations and subsidize eco-friendly practices.