IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v15y2018i12p2700-d186564.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Challenges Facing Home-Based Caregivers in the Management of Health Care Risk Waste

Author

Listed:
  • Thobile Zikhathile

    (Mangosuthu University of Technology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, 511 Griffiths Mxenge Highway, Umlazi, KwaZulu-Natal 4031, South Africa)

  • Harrison Atagana

    (Institute for Science and Technology Education, University of South Africa, Pretoria 0003, South Africa)

Abstract

The quadruple burden of diseases, early discharge from hospital and hospital at home have resulted in home-based care services becoming a requirement in South Africa. These home-based care services generate a significant amount of health care risk waste that is mismanaged. More attention is given to the health care risk waste generated in hospitals and clinics than to health care risk waste generated by home-based caregivers. Therefore, this study investigates the health care risk waste management practices by home-based caregivers. The study adopted a mixed research approach, qualitative and quantitative methods, using a literature review, interviews, and questionnaires as means of data collection. Results show that there are different types of health care risk waste generated as a result of different activities performed by home-based caregivers, but that the waste was found to be managed in an unsafe manner. The majority of households receiving home-based care did not have basic sanitation facilities such as toilets, running water and waste removal services, aggravating the issue of health care risk waste mismanagement. The study recommends a new policy framework that will lead to safe management practices of generated health care risk waste to be adopted by home-based caregivers.

Suggested Citation

  • Thobile Zikhathile & Harrison Atagana, 2018. "Challenges Facing Home-Based Caregivers in the Management of Health Care Risk Waste," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(12), pages 1-20, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:15:y:2018:i:12:p:2700-:d:186564
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/12/2700/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/12/2700/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Manga, Veronica E. & Forton, Osric Tening & Mofor, Linus A. & Woodard, Ryan, 2011. "Health care waste management in Cameroon: A case study from the Southwestern Region," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 108-116.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Thobile Zikhathile & Harrison Atagana & Joseph Bwapwa & David Sawtell, 2022. "A Review of the Impact That Healthcare Risk Waste Treatment Technologies Have on the Environment," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(19), pages 1-18, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. María Carmen Carnero, 2020. "Waste Segregation FMEA Model Integrating Intuitionistic Fuzzy Set and the PAPRIKA Method," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 8(8), pages 1-29, August.
    2. Catia Milena Lopes & Annibal José Scavarda & Mauricio Nunes Macedo de Carvalho & André Luis Korzenowski, 2018. "The Business Model and Innovation Analyses: The Sustainable Transition Obstacles and Drivers for the Hospital Supply Chains," Resources, MDPI, vol. 8(1), pages 1-17, December.
    3. Cheol-Woo Yoon & Min-Jung Kim & Yoon-Su Park & Tae-Wan Jeon & Min-Yong Lee, 2022. "A Review of Medical Waste Management Systems in the Republic of Korea for Hospital and Medical Waste Generated from the COVID-19 Pandemic," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-25, March.
    4. Navarro Ferronato & Vincenzo Torretta, 2019. "Waste Mismanagement in Developing Countries: A Review of Global Issues," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(6), pages 1-28, March.
    5. Bilal Ahmed Khan & Aves Ahmed Khan & Haris Ahmed & Shazia Shaheen Shaikh & Zhaiming Peng & Longsheng Cheng, 2019. "A Study on Small Clinics Waste Management Practice, Rules, Staff Knowledge, and Motivating Factor in a Rapidly Urbanizing Area," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(20), pages 1-15, October.
    6. Kaouther Maaroufi & Terry Tudor & Mentore Vaccari & Afef Siala & Ezzeddine Mahmoudi, 2020. "An Evaluation of Staff Engagement with Infectious Healthcare Waste Management Policies: A Case Study of Tunisia," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(5), pages 1-12, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:15:y:2018:i:12:p:2700-:d:186564. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.