Knowledge, Attitude and Practice Regarding Hepatitis B Infection among Nurses in Public Hospitals of Niger State, Nigeria

Abstract

Aim: This is a cross sectional descriptive study that evaluated knowledge, attitude and practice regarding HBV infection among nurses in public hospitals in Niger State North Central part of Nigeria. Study Design: The study consisted of 1085 nurses working in 23 secondary health care facilities in the state. Distribution of nurses was based on the size and workload of each hospital. Ethical clearance was obtained from ethical committee of the Ministry of health Niger state. Methodology: A multi stage probability sampling method was used in selecting participants for the study. 283 nurses of the 350 questionnaires distributed were used. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 22. Results: The results of the study showed that, the mean Age of respondents was 45± S.E 0.6 years with 35.7% males and 64.3% females. Significant percentage (82.3%) of the respondents had diploma as their highest qualification. And 58.3% had adequate knowledge of HBV. Majority (96.5%) used hand gloves and 70.1% do not recap needles after injection compared to 27.9% that still recap needle after use. However, no significant difference was observed between knowledge of HBV and use of hand gloves or re-capping of needle [X² (3) =1.727, P value = 0.911 and X²(1) = 1.191, P value = 0.285. There were 65% of respondents that had HBV screening and 6% were HbsAg positive. As much as 35% of respondents never had HBV screening. Furthermore, 62.9% of the respondents had vaccination while 37.1% remained at risk for not been vaccinated. No significant relationship between knowledge of HBV and screening or vaccination {X²(1) = 1.781, P value = 0.182 and X²(1) = 2.692, P value = 0.105}. Conclusion: Educational programmes based on hepatitis B - its causes, mode of transmission, prevention, adherence to universal precautions and complication like wise adherence or compliance to infection control policy in the hospital are essential to nurses and other health care workers to prevent risk of contact and spread of hospital acquired HBV infection.