Hepatitis B and C prevalence and prevention awareness among health care workers in a tertiary care hospital

ABSTRACT

To find the prevalence of Hepatitis B and C and to assess the current Hepatitis B vaccination status and knowledge of standard prophylaxis against blood borne infections in selected group of health care workers at Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences [PIMS] Islamabad. Descriptive cross sectional prospective study. Between 15th June 2009-30[th] June 2009. Infection Control Committee in collaboration with Microbiology Department, Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences Islamabad. Three hundred eighty three health workers comprising of nurses and Lab workers were interviewed after taking verbal consent using a self administered questionnaire. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 13. Among the 383 HCWs interviewed nurses were 72% [277] and Lab workers were 27.5% [106] .There age ranged from 17-59 years with mean age of 34.38 years. 41% of health care workers had service length between 1-5 years. 57.6% [221] were completely vaccinated, 18.3% [70] partially vaccinated and 24% [92] were not vaccinated at all. Awareness and attitude problem was identified as the main factor responsible for lack of vaccination. 53.5% [206] had been exposed to needle stick injury at least 1-5 times in their whole professional life. 48.1% [99] of the needle stick injury exposed personnel were aware of post exposure prophylaxis whereas 51.9% [107] of them were ignorant of standard prophylaxis. Most of the individuals knew their Hepatitis B and C status i.e. 93.7% [359] while 6.3% [24] had never got themselves tested for hepatitis Band C. Hepatitis B positive were 0.5% [2], while 1 .6% [6] were Hepatitis C positive among 359 HCWs. Percentage of HCWs vaccinated was low and the main factor responsible was awareness and attitude problem. At the same time non- availability of vaccine by the employer had been identified as the second most important reason for non vaccination. Half of the studied group was not aware of the precise post exposure prophylaxis .The prevalence of Hepatitis B and C was low in this high risk group as compared to general population of the area