Logo image
Back
A Community Level Sample Survey to Determine Current Understanding About Medical Recycling of Cardiovascular Implantable Electronic Devices
Letter/Communication   Open access   Peer reviewed

A Community Level Sample Survey to Determine Current Understanding About Medical Recycling of Cardiovascular Implantable Electronic Devices

Milan Mahesh, Munish Sharma and Daniel AN Mascarenhas
Cardiology research, v 9(4), pp 239-243
01 Aug 2018
DOI: https://doi.org/10.14740/cr755w
PMID: 30116452
Featured in Collection :   UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
url
https://doi.org/10.14740/cr755wView
Published, Version of Record (VoR) Open CC BY-NC V4.0

Abstract

Short Communication
Background: Medical recycling and reutilization of cardiovascular implantable electronic devices (CIEDs) have a significant impact not only in patients of low-income countries but may also in certain patients in the United States who do not have sufficient medical insurance coverage. The main determining factor for future utility and popularity of recycled medical devices is thorough understanding about this topic amongst public and healthcare professional. To the best of our knowledge, there has been no study conducted so far at a community level to determine the understanding in public and healthcare personnel about recycling of medical devices including CIEDs. We sought to determine existing knowledge and attitude about recycling of CIEDs amongst representative sample population in a community. Methods: A questionnaire was sent for online completion to multiple people in the community, healthcare and funeral home in Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania, USA. The questionnaire was designed in order to assess three main categories; knowledge, attitude and practice. We called this a KAP study which is an acronym for knowledge, attitude and practice survey. Results: We got 117 responses to our questionnaire from community members(55.45%), 89 responses (42.18%) from the healthcare personnel and five responses (2.37%) from funeral homes. About 30.77% community participants had heard about medical devices recycling compared to57.30% participants from healthcare sector. A total of 88.64% of medical professionals were aware that there are people in the world who die because they cannot afford CIEDs while 73.50% of community participants were also found to be aware of this fact. Higher percentages of healthcare professionals were found to be willing to personally consider a decision about medical device donation compared to community participants. Conclusions: CIED reutilization can improve quality of life among many patients with low or medium socioeconomic status. People should be made more aware about the benefits of CIED reutilization. Concerns about device-related infections, complications and law suits should be addressed to help improve their utility.

Metrics

1 Record Views
2 citations in Web of Science

Details

UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

This publication has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:

#3 Good Health and Well-Being

Source: SDGs in the Output

InCites Highlights

Data related to this publication, from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool:

Collaboration types
Domestic collaboration
Web of Science research areas
Cardiac & Cardiovascular Systems
Logo image