Awareness and safe practices of Hepatitis-B and C prevention and transmission among workers of women beauty salons

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES: Hepatitis-B and C is currently a major health problem all over the world including Pakistan. All beauty treatments including manicures are used by many people and can be a risk factor because of sharing of contaminated instruments. Proper sterilization needs to be achieved by an autoclave. Our study was conducted to know the awareness and safe practices of Hepatitis-B and C prevention and transmission by beauty salon workers in Karachi. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional descriptive study performed from February 2021- July 2021 among workers of women’s beauty salons across Karachi. Validated questioners were distributed and were filled in the presence of research worker. Data was compiled and analyzed using SPSS version 22. Workers who scored ≥ 70% were considered to have adequate knowledge. RESULTS: Our results showed that out of 261 participants, 240 (92.3%) were females. 49(18.8%) had adequate knowledge about hepatitis-B, 63(24.1%) had adequate knowledge about hepatitis-C. 111(42.5%) had adequate practices. According to the independent T test, there was statistically significant relationship between family history of hepatitis-B and knowledge of Hepatitis-B (p=0.022), hepatitis-B vaccination and knowledge of Hepatitis-B (p=0.006). We also found significant relationship between family history of hepatitis-C and knowledge of hepatitis-C (p=0.019), also between previous blood test performed for hepatitis antibodies and knowledge about hepatitis-B and C. On Uni-Variate logistic regression we found that males participants are less likely to have adequate Hepatitis-C knowledge in comparison of female participants (OR=0.152). We also found that participants who have Hepatitis-B family history, have more likely to have adequate Hepatitis-C knowledge (OR=1.874) and males participants are less likely to have adequate Hepatitis-B knowledge in comparison of female participants (OR=0.212). Only 45(17.2%) workers were fully vaccinated with Hepatitis-B and 126(48.3%) had knowledge of adequate sterilization technique of equipment’s. CONCLUSION: This study showed that overall awareness among workers of women beauty salon in Karachi about Hepatitis-B and C is inadequate with low vaccination rates. There is dire need to organize awareness programs with mass vaccination campaigns for safe practices and to curb viral transmission.