Knowledge and awareness of effective recycling of dental materials and waste management among Peruvian undergraduate students of dentistry: A logistic regression analysis

Abstract

Objective: Biomedical waste management and recycling is a very important topic today to preserve the environment, especially at the university level where future specialists in the health sciences are trained. So, the aim of this study was to evaluate the knowledge and awareness about recycling of dental materials and waste management among Peruvian undergraduate students of dentistry. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study evaluated 254 Peruvian undergraduate dentistry students from October 2019 to January 2020, at the National University of San Marcos. The associated factors evaluated were age (X1), sex (X2), year of study (X3), and marital status (X4), which were analyzed using a logit model to identify the influence of the intervening variables with a P value < 0.05. Results: None of the variables studied were considered to be a factor affecting the awareness, knowledge, and management of biomedical waste in Peruvian dentistry students, with the following odds ratios (OR) being obtained: age (OR = 0.96; confidence interval [CI]: 0.85-1.08), sex (OR = 1.69; CI: 0.98-2.90), year of study (OR = 1.18; CI: 0.91-1.54), and marital status (OR = 1.84; CI: 0.14-23.68). Conclusions: The results of this study show that Peruvian Public University students have knowledge and are aware of the need for adequate management and/or recycling of biomedical waste dental care products, with none of the possible associated variables studied significantly affecting this relationship.