Level of awareness of Hepatitis B among teacher trainees at Makerere University
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Date
2019-11Author
Kafuuma, Lawrence
Kasozi, Edward
Masembe, William
Gonzaga, Raymond Lee
Ssemakula, Brian
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Hepatitis B (HB) is a serious infection that affects liver and caused by hepatitis B virus (HBV). It is contagious and easy to be transmitted from one infected individual to another by blood to blood contact, mother to child, unprotected sexual intercourse, sharing of eating utensils and other barber shop and beauty salon equipment. The aim of this study was to assess knowledge of transmissions and prevention of hepatitis B among teacher trainees at Makerere University. A cross sectional study was conducted on 92 teacher trainees and questionnaire was used to collect data. Most of our respondents were male (57.6%).Among the respondents, majority were in third year (42.4%), followed by those in second year (29.3%) and the rest in first year (28.3%).58.7% (54) said hepatitis B is transmitted through blood transfusion, 54.3% (50) said hepatitis B is transmitted through un protected sexualintercourse,39.1% (36) said hepatitis B is transmitted through use of un safe needles and sharps, 34.8% (32) said hepatitis B could be spread through eating of food pre-chewed by an infected person, while 34.8% (32) said hepatitis B can be transmitted through being coughed at by an infected person, 50% said hepatitis B can be transmitted through holding hands with an infected person, 41.3% (38) said hepatitis B can be spread by sharing infected needles or syringe, 45.7% (42) said hepatitis B can be spread through sharing tooth brushes with an infected person. During the study, as per the teacher trainees' knowledge about prevention of Hepatitis B, 69.6% (64) informed that they gone for Hepatitis B testing, 93.5% (86) of teacher trainees knew that Hepatitis B was preventable and 91.3% (84) students said that they had ever heard of Hepatitis B vaccination. 48.9% (45) said that vaccination as method against hepatitis B infection was very effective, but only29.3% (27) received the hepatitis B vaccine, 9.8% (9) teacher trainees went for booster immunisation. It was found that 10.9% (10) received the vaccine at school or college, 13.0% (12) teacher trainees received the vaccine at hospital while 4.3% (4) students were vaccinated at other places like district headquarters. Most of the teacher trainees, 75% (69) said “vaccination is the best prevention and control method”. Among the respondents 2.2%, 2.2%, 1.1 %, 3.3%, 6.5% marked condom use, remaining faithful to single partner, sterilizing dental instruments, screening blood donations, abstaining from sex respectively as the control and prevention method respectively while 3.3% opted for other methods.