Knowledge and Practice of Adult Population Regarding Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Background: Hepatitis B virus (HBV) Infection is a serious worldwide community health problem. HBV is the 10^th leading reason of global death. Tentatively, hepatitis B is a serious infection activated by HBV, which attacks the liver and can cause both acute and chronic disease. Aim: To explore the adult population’s Knowledge and Practice regarding Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Design: To achieve the aim of the current study a descriptive correlation design was used. Method: 402 adult Saudi male and female were recruited in the current study from different regions in Riyadh; data was collected by a questionnaire developed in English by the researchers then translated to Arabic, the tool consisted of 3 sections; section 1: Contained questions related to socio-demographic and biomedical data. Section2: contained 17 questions for knowledge assessment. Section3: contained 10 questions for practice assessment. Results: The study results showed that the total knowledge mean score  x̄ + SD was 22.23 + 4.22, the total practice  mean score  x̄ + SD was 7.43 + 4.19 and revealed that there was a statistically significant differences between total knowledge score and total practice score with  r = 0.113 and P = 0.023 and also showed a statistical significant differences between the level of education with knowledge r = 0.12 and P = 0.015 however, there is no statistical significant differences between the level of education and practice r =-0.04 and p=0.94. Conclusion: The knowledge regarding HBV among Saudi population in Riyadh was fair while the practice was poor, which indicated the need of more awareness and education campaigns regarding the good practice about HBV.

Keywords: Hepatitis B virus (HBV), Knowledge, Practice.