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HEPATITIS B VIRUS VACCINATION STATUS AND ASSOCIATED FACTORS AMONG HEALTH CARE WORKERS IN HEALTH INSTITUTIONS OF EAST WOLLEGA ZONE, WEST ETHIOPIA

Milkias Dugassa, Erdaw Tachbale, Aklil Haile, Lemi Bacha

Background: Hepatitis B virus [HBV] infection is a serious and common infectious disease of the liver, affecting millions of people throughout the world. World Health Organization [WHO] has recommended vaccination for all health care workers [HCWs]. In addition to this center for disease control and prevention and WHO guidelines recommend that all healthcare providers and trainees should be knowledgeable about Hepatitis B infection; however, previous studies reported that knowledge of hepatitis B was unsatisfactory and vaccination coverage was low among HCWS. Objective: To assess the knowledge about HBV infection and vaccination status of health care workers in Health Institutions of East Wollega Zone, West Ethiopia. Methods and materials: Institution based cross-sectional study was conducted on randomly selected 513 HCWs. Multi stage sampling technique was used. Self-administered questionnaire was used to collect the data. Then the data was entered into Epi-data 4.2 version and exported to Statistical Package for Social Science [SPSS] version 20 for analysis. All covariates that are significant at p value < 0.05 in bivariate analysis were considered for further multivariate logistic regression analysis to detect true predictors of vaccination status. Result: The questionnaire was distributed to 513 HCWs and only 500[97.5%] of them returned it. Out of the total respondents 316[63.2%] were knowledgeable and 184[36.8%] were not knowledgeable. The finding of this study also revealed 299[59.8%] of the HCWs were vaccinated and 201[40.2%] of them were unvaccinated. However, only 34.2% of HCWs were fully vaccinated. Work experience, type of health institution and training on infection prevention were the factors associated with Knowledge level. On the other hand educational level, working unit, history of occupational exposure, type of health institution and vaccine unavailability were the factors associated with vaccination status of HCWs [p value < 0.05]. Conclusion and Recommendation: The finding of the present study generally shows insufficient knowledge about HBV and low rate of HBV vaccine coverage among health care workers. This shows that there is still a need to improve the knowledge and vaccination coverage of health care workers. Therefore, it is recommended that a deliberate programme of training on Hepatitis B infection and vaccine provision should be implemented for all health care workers. Keywords: Health care workers, knowledge level, fully vaccinated, unvaccinated, partially vaccinated

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