Dental health care waste disposal among private dental practices in Bangalore City, India.
Any waste generated consequent to health care activity including any from a home environment is health care waste. Dental practices generate large amounts of waste cotton, plastic, latex, glass and other materials much of which may be contaminated with body fluids.


OBJECTIVE
To assess the knowledge, attitude and behaviour of private dental practitioners on health care waste management in Bangalore City.


METHODS
A cross-sectional study of 432 private dental practitioners in Bangalore City using a self-administered questionnaire.


RESULTS
389 dentists responded; 64.3% do not segregate waste before disposal and 47.6% hand over health care waste to street garbage collectors; 42.1% felt that there was a lack of waste management agency services and 16.9% felt that a lack of knowledge were the main hurdles.


CONCLUSIONS
Dentists need education regarding health care waste disposal methods to improve their knowledge. A large proportion of the dentists are not practising proper methods of health care waste disposal. The existence of legislation governing healthcare waste disposal is not sufficient alone to motivate many practitioners to comply with guidelines.
Sudhakar
V
V
Department of Community Dentistry, St Joseph Dental College, Eluru, Andhrapradesh, India. dr_vsk@yahoo.co.in
Chandrashekar
Janakiram
J
D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D018057:Dental Waste; D003815:Dentists / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D019983:Guideline Adherence; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D007194:India; D008297:Male; D017744:Medical Waste Disposal; D011331:Private Practice; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
D018057:Dental Waste; D017744:Medical Waste Disposal