Assessment of the Knowledge of Hepatitis B Virus Infection in Primary Healthcare Centers in Abuja, Nigeria

Abstract

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection affects the liver and can lead to potentially life-threatening acute or chronic disease. The population with high HBV infection prevalence of ≥ 8%, such as Nigeria, presents the highest risk of HBV transmission among health-workers. There is a need to disseminate knowledge of HBV infection and the risk of transmission to health-workers. In this baseline study, the team assessed the knowledge of HBV infection among health-workers in Primary Healthcare Centers (PHCs) in AMAC, Abuja. We conducted cross-sectional descriptive research that studied 168 randomly selected health-workers from 58 PHCs in AMAC, collected data with a pre-tested structured questionnaire, and analyzed it with SPSS version 21.0. The knowledge level of HBV symptoms and transmission ranged from 57.1% to 85.7%s and 84.5% to 91.7%, respectively. About 67% demonstrated good knowledge of HBV screening for pregnant women and 69% of Hepatitis B vaccination at birth. All the PHCs (100%) reported the unavailability of guidelines/protocols for HBV infection in pregnancy management and prevention. Furthermore, 51.2%, 53.7%, and 55.6% demonstrated poor knowledge of referral, PMTCT eligibility, and increased need for laboratory tests, respectively. Moreover, 60.2% showed poor awareness of treatment eligibility and 61.2% of choice of drug. Concluding, the respondents demonstrated good knowledge of HBV infection symptoms, transmission, screening for pregnant women, and vaccination schedules to prevent HBV infection. They showed a poor understanding of the referral of pregnant HBV seropositive women from the PHCs to secondary/tertiary hospitals, PMTCT, laboratory requirements for pregnant seropositive clients, and management of chronic HBV in pregnancy. Keywords: Abuja, Hepatitis B virus Infection, Health-workers, Knowledge, Primary healthcare centers.