Do the medical, dental and nursing students of first year know about hepatits B? A study from a university of North India

Objective: To assess the knowledge about hepatitis B among the medical, dental and nursing students of first year in Subharti University, a private medical university of North India.Methods: A cross sectional institutional study was conducted among the first year students of medical, dental and nursing colleges of Subharti University. The total subjects studied were 250. Data was collected when the student came up for hepatitis B vaccination in the Department of Community Medicine. Data was entered in MS Excel and analyzed using Epi Info for Windows. Bivariate analysis using Chi-square test was applied.Results: Overall, 83.32% of the study subjects had heard of hepatitis B. Only 42% knew that virus is a cause of hepatitis B. Awareness of mother to child transmission of hepatitis B was present in only 12% of the study subjects. Unsafe blood transfusion as a risk factor of hepatitis B was known by 35.2%, whereas, prevalence of knowledge regarding reused needles and unsafe sex as risk factors was lesser. Forty-four percent of the study subjects were not aware of vaccination against hepatitis B. There was a significant difference in the proportion of students of the different faculties about the correct knowledge about hepatitis B.Conclusion: The knowledge about hepatitis B was very low among the students entering in the medical, dental and nursing profession. This highlights the importance of informed and evidence based education programmes among the students of these healthcare professions