Hepatitis B virus vaccination status and associated factors among health care workers in Shashemene Zonal Town, Shashemene, Ethiopia: a cross sectional study.

BACKGROUND: Hepatitis B virus (HBV) remains a major global health problem. More than three-quarters of HBV infection occur in Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Healthcare workers (HCWs) are at risk of acquiring HBV, hepatitis C (HCV) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections via exposure to patients' blood and bodily fluids. HBV infection is a recognized occupational hazard, and non-immune health professionals are at risk of acquiring the infection from their work. This study was intended to assess the level of HBV vaccination status and factors affecting the vaccination status of health care workers in Shashemene Zonal Town.

METHODS: Institution based cross-sectional study was conducted and a simple random sampling technique was used to select study subjects. A total of 423 HCWs were enrolled in the study. A structured and pre-tested questionnaire was used to collect the required information through a face to face interview. Finally, data were processed and analyzed using Epi info version 7 and SPSS version 21. Both bivariate and multivariable logistic regression analyses were used to assess the effect of the various factors on vaccination status of HCWs. p value ≤0.05 at 95% CI was considered statistically significant.

RESULTS: Overall, 53 (12.9%) respondents were found to be fully vaccinated. The multivariable logistic regression showed that, those respondents who are female, had ≥10 years of work experience and those working at governmental health care institutions were significantly associated with vaccination status (AOR = 3.84, 12.51, 2.45 respectively).

CONCLUSION: Our study revealed that vaccination status of subjects was below the WHO's estimation of vaccination rate among HCWs in developing countries and was very poor when compared with other countries. This is a serious public health problem and challenge for a country with high prevalence of hepatitis B infection.