Assessment of hepatitis C risk factors in center of Iran: A case–control study

BACKGROUND: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections remain as one of the major public health problems worldwide. The current study aimed at investigating the potential risk factors of HCV+ in a sample of Iranian patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In a case–control study, 436 HCV-infected patients and 531 age-matched HCV antibody negative controls were recruited in a central region of Iran. Sociodemographic characteristics, blood and therapeutic factors, underlying diseases, and behavioral risk factors were evaluated through a standard checklist and compared between two study groups. RESULTS: Although among studied potential risk factors, many of them were significantly associated with infected with HCV; however, in multivariable logistic regression model in the presence of other variables being male gender (odds ratio [OR]: 4.1; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 2.2–7.8), illiterate or less educated (OR: 62.64; 95% CI: 5.94–660.35), having history of intravenous (IV) drug addiction (OR: 33.0; 95% CI: 5.43–250.0), and tattooing (OR: 14.29; 95% CI: 1.82–90.91) increased risk of infection with HCV. CONCLUSION: In total, the current case–control study documented that socioecomical factors including economical state, marital status, education, and ethnicity and also other expected factors such as hospitalization, imprisonment, dialysis, tattooing, needle sharing, IV drug abuse, and extramarital sexual relationship represent an important source of HCV infection among adults in a central region of Iran. Thus, we suggest further considerations for prevention of HCV infection as most of related factors are preventable by close considerations.