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Muhammad Saad Farooq, Muhammad Adil Umer, Areeba Maham, Zoya Ishfaq, Romah Ishfaq
Objective: To determine the knowledge, attitude and practices of health care professionals regarding transmission and prevention of Hepatitis B virus infection. Methods: This cross-sectional study was done on health care professionals of Nishtar Medical University and Hospital Multan from December 2018 to April 2019. Three hundred thirty-three respondents were selected by non-probability convenient sampling. Their knowledge, attitude and practices were assessed by asking 16, 8 and 8 questions for each respectively. Depending upon their answers their knowledge, attitude and practices were regarded as good if their correct answers were 80%. Chi-square test was used to test the knowledge attitude and practices against their characteristics. Results: Out of 333 study participants, 140 (42%) were House Officers, 103 (30.9%) were Post-graduation Residents, and 90 (27.1%) were Nursing staff. Among House officers, post-graduation residents, nursing staff, good knowledge was seen in 77.1%, 80.6%, 58.9% respectively; positive attitude was seen in 87.1%, 85.4%, 76.7% respectively, good practice was found in 76.4%, 68%, 80% respectively. Only 57.1% were fully vaccinated and 73.9% knew about the availability of post-exposure prophylaxis. Knowledge of the respondents was significantly associated with basic education level, and practices were significantly associated with their department. Conclusions: This study indicates that overall knowledge, attitude, practices are satisfactory, except in the nursing staff who had relatively poor knowledge. Only 57.1% of health care professionals were fully vaccinated against hepatitis B which needs to be improved. Key words: Hepatitis B virus, knowledge, Attitude, practice, health care professionals