Assessment of Knowledge and Attitude of HBV among Secondary School and College Students of Gopalganj

Abstract

The global epidemic of Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is now progressing at a rapid rate among young people. School or College people are at high risk of HBV infections. Therefore, awareness is needed to control and preventthe transmission of HBV. The purpose of our study was to determine the knowledge level of Secondary and Higher Secondary students of Gopalganj about HBV and their attitude towards the infected patients. The survey was conducted on 301 different school or college students of Gopalganj by using a prestructured questionnaire. All of the respondents have heard about the term HBV. The major sources of information weremedia (63.5%) and educational institute (36.6%). According to most of respondents the disease can be transmitted by unprotected sex (94.2%), mother to fetus (86.4%), sharinginfected needles or syringe (90.2%), blood transfusion (92.1%) and breast feeding (69.1%). Some respondents said that it can be transmitted by razor sharing (40.2%) and medical or dentalprocedure (30.1%). Some students had misconception about the transmission. About 22%students said it can be transmitted by mosquito bite. Regarding the knowledge about controland prevention most of them had better knowledge. Most participants had positive attitudetowards infected person. Education and intervention programs are needed to be arranged to reduce the misconception and to increase awareness of HBV.