ABSTRACT

Background: The basic information that can be obtained from patients with HBV infection knowledge, attitude, and practice can be important tool to design effective health policies for the health care facilities and for the community.

Aim: To assess the knowledge, attitude, and practice among Hepatitis-B patients in Sulaimani Governorate/ Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

Methodology: A descriptive cross sectional study was performed on Hepatitis-B virus patients (n=312) attending the gastrointestinal and liver centre in Sulaimani city between 16 July and 12 September 2020. The knowledge, attitude, and practice of patients with HBV infection were evaluated using a structured questionnaire (attached file) containing 23, 7 and 15 questions for knowledge, attitude and practice, respectively. Besides, the questionnaire has 7 demographic data. Results: More than 55% have fair or good knowledge but still 44% were with poor knowledge. Highest proportion of the patients (58%) had fair attitude toward HBV infection, also less than half of the patients (42%) had good attitude, while few percentage of the patients (0.3%) had poor attitude. Most of the HBV patients (92.3%) have either poor or fair practices, while only 7.6% of them have good practice.

Conclusion: The highest percentages of HBV patients in Sulaimani city have poor knowledge, fair attitude, and poor practice.

Keywords: Hepatitis B virus, Knowledge, Attitude, Practice, Sulaimani City