Awareness and Practice of Biomedical Waste Management in Indian Setting (2012-2016): Systematic Review

Biomedical waste management rule (2016) redefines the classification of biomedical waste as per colour coded containers for improving the segregation of biomedical waste. The present review analyses the awareness and practice of biomedical waste management by various health care professionals in Indian setting. We included studies that assessed the awareness and practice of segregation and treatment procedures regarding biomedical waste management conducted at Indian setting published in the period from 2012- 2016 in the electronic databases: Medline, EMBASE & Google scholar using STROBE checklist.19 studies of awareness and 9 studies of practice regarding biomedical waste management were finally met the review’s inclusion criteria. Results of the 19 studies conducted among various health professionals revealed that half of the participants (50%) were aware about correct colour coding of bags for segregation of biomedical waste. Segregation of biomedical waste was adequate in most of the studies conducted at tertiary care settings (60-80%), while it was poor at small health care facilities. More than half of the settings in the included studies were not equipped with a common bio-medical waste management treatment facility. The present review suggests the need of training and evaluation of biomedical waste management practices with homogenous research instruments among various health professionals in Indian setting