Perception of undergraduates enrolled in health science courses from Asmara Eritrea towards Hepatitis B

INTRODUCTION: Hepatitis B (HB) is one of the highly infectious and the most common cause of chronic hepatitis, liver cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma. It is transmitted through blood and body fluids. Most healthcare related personnel are at very high susceptibility towards this infection from the infected patients. AIMS: To evaluate the knowledge and practice towards the hepatitis disease and its cross-infection among dental and medical undergraduate students for the first time ever from Eritrea. SETTINGS AND DESIGN: It is a cross-sectional survey conducted in the only institute offering undergraduate courses in the field of health sciences. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 115 medical and 50 dental undergraduate students from a health science institute situated in Asmara Eritrea filled the form and submitted for evaluation. The questionnaire consisted of the demographic variables such as college of study, year of course, age, gender, apart from questions regarding the knowledge, attitude, and practice towards hepatitis and its transfusion. All the data was transferred to excel and applied statistical test using SPSS software. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS USED: Chi-square test was to test the association between the knowledge and practice variable within the stream of study. RESULTS: The overall knowledge of the undergraduate students was found to be very high when assessed through this survey although practice scores were not satisfactory. When asked, “Do you think you can be affected by Hepatitis?”, in regular practice 33 individual gave incorrect answers. CONCLUSION: There is no doubt that the overall knowledge of the undergraduate students is found to be very high but practice scores and awareness towards chances of cross-infection is poor which requires further sessions of education and practice-based courses to be planned for the students.