Assessment of Knowledge, Attitude and Practices among Healthcare Professionals Regarding Hepatitis B Infection and Vaccination in a Tertiary Care Hospital

Abstract

Background: Hepatitis B infection is an occupational risk for Healthcare workers (HCWs).[3] They have a greaterrisk of acquiring HBV infection due to exposure to blood or bodily fluids. Compared to the general population, therisk is four times higher for this group of professionals. The present study was carried out to know the vaccinationstatus of Hepatitis B; assess knowledge and attitude towards Hepatitis B vaccination; and to assess the awarenessabout Hepatitis B infection among health care professionals.Methods and Materials: A cross sectional study was conducted in the MY Hospital, Indore for a period of 6months after getting approval from institutional ethics committee. The sample size of 210 healthcare professionalswas selected using simple random sampling technique. The data was collected by using a pre-designed, validatedsemi-structured questionnaire. Data collected through the questionnaires were coded, entered into a database andanalysed using a statistical software SPSS version 25(trial version).Results: 63.81% of HCWs knew about HBV infection. 43.81% were aware about its spread through saliva. 77.36%doctors, 74.78% nurses and 80.95% of the other health care workers never used PPE while handling blood andbody fluids. All the doctors, 54.78% nurses and 21.43 of others knew about the HBV vaccine (p-value<0.00001).88.68% doctors and 41.27% nurses and only 33.33% of the other staff knew that there were three doses of HBVvaccine. Majority of the doctors (83.02%) and nurses (53.04%) had received HBV vaccine, while 69.05% of otherhealth care workers did not receive any dose of HBV vaccine.Conclusion: The study shows that complete knowledge regarding the hepatitis B infection, its mode of transmission,preventive measures and screening is still lacking among the health care workers. Although doctors seem to be themost knowledgeable, there is a need to improve the knowledge and practices among the other workers as well.