Assessment of knowledge, attitude and uptake of Hepatitis B vaccination among pregnant women: a case study at Mpigi Health Center IV, Uganda

Abstract

Introduction: Hepatitis B vaccination offers economic, social and health benefits. However, the uptake of hepatitis B vaccine among vulnerable people including pregnant women has not been extensively studied. Objective: To investigate knowledge, attitude and uptake of Hepatitis B among pregnant women at Mpigi health center IV. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 154 pregnant women attending antenatal at Mpigi health center IV. Face- to -face interviews were held with respondents using a questionnaire. Data were collected using Kobo Collect software., Univariate analysis was used to get proportions, frequencies, means, and standard deviation. At the bivariate level, analysis was done to test the association between the independent variables of interest and the outcome variable, and cross-tabulation was done using chi-square (p-value < 0.05 was considered statistically significant). In order to estimate the strength of association, further analysis was conducted using logistic regression with knowledge, attitude and uptake of Hepatitis B vaccination as the dependent variables. Results: More than half (56.5%) of the participants were not knowledgeable about HBV vaccination. Factors associated with knowledge included Age (p= 0.01), marital status (p= 0.01) and education levels (0.03) Over 52.6% had a positive towards hepatitis B vaccine uptake with a median score of 3.0 (IQR = 1,4) and this was associated to having high knowledge levels (p= 0.00). Only 6% of the pregnant women had taken the Hepatitis B vaccine and this was associated to education levels (p =0.00), knowledge levels (p =0.02) and attitude (p = 0.01). Those that were not educated were had low levels of Hepatitis B vaccination uptake. Conclusion: This study shows that few pregnant women were vaccinated and this was associated with low education levels, low knowledge levels and negative attitude levels. Interventions should be aimed at sensitizing pregnant women such that they know the importance of being vaccinated against hepatitis B as this will in turn reduce the mortality rate, increasing productivity among the women hence increasing the country’s GDP and improvement of people’s welfare.