Jsmc-10307

HEPATITIS B VACCINATION AMONG DENTAL HEALTHCARE WORKERS IN ERBIL CITY

Rebaz Tahir Lak a

a Kurdistan Board of Medical Specialties, Erbil, Kurdistan Region, Iraq.

Submitted: 18/8/2020; Accepted: 1/7/2021; Published: 21/6/2021

DOI Link: https://doi.org/10.17656/jsmc.10307

ABSTRACT

Background

Approximately 350–400 million people have been diagnosed with chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) worldwide. It is assumed that dentists and dental staff can be infected and, simultaneously, transmit the virus to their patients more easily comparing to other professions

Objectives

This study aimed to identify the status of hepatitis B vaccination among health personnel working in the dentistry field and define their risky behaviors in daily practice

Methods

In this cross-sectional study, a self-administered questionnaire was filled by the respondents between November 2019 and January 2020. To ensure the representativeness of the sample and generalization of the results, a cluster sampling method was performed to select the study sample, and three out of the five dental polyclinic centers were selected.

Results

Two-thirds (66.4%) of the subjects received the three full doses or more of the vaccine while one-third (33.6%) of them either did not receive the vaccine at all or have received incomplete doses of the recommended schedule. The majority of the respondents (85.8%) reported some sort of mucocutaneous injuries, including needle sticks or syringes and sharp cuts. There was a statistically significant association between vaccination status and dental centers, departments, occupation of the dental healthcare workers and p values were less than 0.005.

Conclusion

Suboptimal vaccination coverage combined with a high proportion of exposure to injuries and discrepancies in vaccination rates among different dental centers, departments and specialties mandate the health authority to improve vaccination coverage and target unvaccinated and at-risk personnel.

KEYWORDS

HBV, Hepatitis B Vaccine; Dentists; Dental Healthcare Workers; Erbil City.

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