Knowledge, Awareness, and Vaccination Compliance of Hepatitis B among Para-Medical Students in Tertiary Care Hospital

Introduction: Healthcare professionals are more likely to contract hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and HIV. Hepatitis B is the most dangerous of them and is also quite contagious. One important preventive measure is to be immunized. Aim & Objective: The purpose of this study is to measure the anti-HbsAb titer among the nursing, laboratory technician, intern and Physiotherapy students of tertiary care hospital. To evaluate knowledge, practice and attitude of them about Hepatitis B & importance of its vaccination.Materials and Methods: This is a cross-sectional study. A predesigned self-administered questionnaire (via Google form) concerning hepatitis B knowledge and awareness was distributed to all the Para-medical students. The data were collected, tabulated, and analyzed by Microsoft Excel version 10. The results were expressed in numbers and percentages. Anti-HbsAb titers were estimated by Enzyme Immunoassay (ELISA) kit.Results: Only 76 students voluntarily participated in the study. Majority of the students (77.1%) were aware of HBV infection. Many students knew that blood transfusion (89.4%) and use of contaminated needles and syringes (96%) are major modes of transmission. However, the students had good knowledge about other modes of transmission. More than 50% of the students lacked in their knowledge about clinical features and complications of hepatitis B infection. Majority of students (93.4%) were aware of HBV vaccination. However, 11.8% students did not know their vaccination status, 53.1% students show protective hepatitis vaccine antibody titer after two or three doses of vaccine.Conclusions: This study found that paramedical students have good knowledge on hepatitis B, still only 14% students are fully vaccinated. Proper documentation of such important event must be there as in cases where they might get exposed to positive cases this information is useful for taking therapeutic decision.