HEPATITIS AND AIDS FEAR AND MISCONCEPTIONS;

Abstract

Introduction: Blood born infection is also one of the medical profession hazard which is added due to virus transmission byneedles and medical instruments and Hepatitis and HIV viruses are leading viruses in this hazard. Medical students who are activelyparticipating in clinical practices and due to contact with patients, face exposure of patient’s needles, instruments, and blood and this exposurestarts in clinical posting of third year when their clinical knowledge and professional skills are in early phases. Objective: To assess andevaluate the existing level of knowledge about these blood born infections (Hepatitis B, C and AIDS) to ensure their participation in clinicalactivities during their clinical posting. Design: An observational cross sectional study with prospective data. Setting: Dow InternationalMedical College. Period: from 2010 to 2011. Methodology: This is an observational cross sectional study with prospective data, done through aquestionnaire survey on third year MBBS students. Results: 47% of the students have fear about to be infected by patient’s examination duringclinical posting and majority of students have misconceptions about transmission of these infections. Students have more knowledge aboutHIV compare to hepatitis but there is no relation in knowledge score and student’s fear as shown by p value of 0.3 and 0.73 for HBV and HIV butfor HCV (p= 0.035) during this study. Conclusions: Up to half of the students have fear to be infected by these infections during patient’sexamination and this perceived risk of infection is due to lack of knowledge and these misconceptions and attitude to these patients are thesources to make them reluctant in active participation of clinical activities directly related to patient.