Objective: Negative impacts of medical wastes on employee and environmental health are possible to decrease through the implementation of an effective medical waste management plan. The most important task in the effective management of the medical waste management plan belongs to health workers. In this study, it is aimed to examine the knowledge and attitude of the dentistry students who will work in dental clinics which are important sources of medical waste.

Material and Method: The crosssectional and descriptive study consisted of 170 students enrolled in the faculty of dentistry in the 2018-2019 academic year. The study was completed with 145 students (response rate 85%). In our study, sociodemographic characteristics, knowledge of medical wastes and the attitude of the dental medicine students towards it were evaluated with a three-part questionnaire form consisting of 41 questions.

Results: The mean age of the 145 participants included in the study was 20.33 ± 1.25 years. 45.5% of the participants had inadequate knowledge and 51.7% had inadequate positive attitudes. It was found that the number of positive attitudes of the participants increased with the year of education (p <0.001). There was a positive correlation between medical waste knowledge level and positive attitude (p =0.002). After the medical waste and management course, the level of knowledge of the participants about medical waste was higher than the pre-course knowledge level (p <0.001).

Conclusion: It is thought that the knowledge and attitudes of future dentist candidates about medical wastes is insufficient. Due to the negative effects of medical wastes on health, environment and national economy, it is necessary to give importance to medical waste education and to inform students more about the number and content of courses.