An online study to assess the disposal of personal protective equipment at home amid COVID-19 pandemic in India

Introduction: In the current COVID-19 pandemic, when most of cases are asymptomatic or mild, and being kept on home isolation, personal protective equipment (PPE) used by them is potentially infectious and needs to be treated like biomedical wastes. The objective of the study is to assess the disposal of PPE used by general public in the current COVID-19 pandemic in India. Materials and Methods: This was a 1-week online cross-sectional descriptive study conducted among residents of India, in the age group of >18 years. The sample was convenient. The study tool was online self-designed, semi-structured, pretested, and self-administered questionnaire. Results: A total of 559 study subjects were analyzed. Maximum (77.8%) subjects were of age 18–40 years with almost equal proportion of male and female. Overall satisfactory disposal of PPE was done by 9.7% of subjects. Conclusion: The PPE disposal in the community is not satisfactory despite majority of the study participants claimed to be aware of PPE disposal guidelines.