Background: Hepatitis B and C
viruses are common and preventable causes of
liver disease .
Health care workers are prone to
infection by the
hepatitis B and C
viruses . In
Nigeria there is no current
guideline on
vaccination of
health care workers especially
health care interns.
Objective: To determine the
knowledge ,
attitude and practice of
health care interns and
students towards
hepatitis virus infection prevention.
Methodology: This is a cross-sectional descriptive
questionnaire -based study which was carried out among
healthcare professional interns and
medical students .
Informed consent and ethical approval were obtained for this
survey . Data entry and
analysis was done using SPSS version 22 and appropriate descriptive
statistics was applied.
Results: A total of 253 interns of several
healthcare professional groups and
medical students took part in the
survey . The
healthcare interns were 115 (45.5%) and
medical students were 138 (54.5%). They were 112
males (44.3%) and 141
females (55.7%), with age range 18-40 years and mean age of 22.9± 3.2 years. The
respondents that knew that both
hepatitis B and C were infective in
nature were 225
accounting for 90.7% of
respondents . The
respondents with good
knowledge on the modes of
transmission of
hepatitis were over 90% for known modes of
transmission while those that knew of
mother to child transmission accounted for 77.6% (n=180). Regarding the
attitude of the
respondents toward
hepatitis B and C, only 60.4% (n=148) thinks that they are at
risk of getting
hepatitis infection . Those that have not received any form of
hepatitis B vaccination were 163
accounting for 65.4% (n=163/253) of
respondents . A high percentage of the
respondents 97.8% (n=223/253) knew
hepatitis B and C can cause
liver disease .
Conclusion: Despite a good
knowledge of
hepatitis B and C infectivity,
attitude towards prevention of the
infection was poor. The study reveals an urgent need for adequate and effective
government and
institutional policies towards prevention of viral
hepatitis