Lecture Contents Concerning Health Care Wastes in Nursing Schools

Abstract

　The purpose of this study was to identify lecture contents concerning health care wastes in Japanese nursing schools, and from analyzing the results to show the sense of learning them in nursing education.

　Questionnaires, consisting of 27 items which related to the treatment and problems of health care wastes, were sent to 303 nursing schools in all areas of Japan and 93 of them （30.7%） returned completed questionnaires in June-September 2002. The data were subjected to factor analyses （initial factor method, varimax rotation）, and five factors with 20 items were identified. Each factor was named with educational meaning, as follows : （1）system and cooperation of the safety treatment, （2） outline of health care wastes, （3）control of infectious wastes, （4） notice of concern for the environment, （5） role as a person who disposes of health care wastes. Scale scores of each factor were analyzed by ANOVA （Analysis of variance） and multiple comparisons （Tukey method）. The results showed that lectures on factor I were significantly less than the others, and also that lectures of nursing colleges rated high only in factor III as compared to those of technical schools.

　These findings suggest the sense of learning about health care wastes, and the need for relevant education in nursing schools.