Abstract:
Globally there are about 360 million chronic carriers of hepatitis B virus and over
one million people die each year. HBV vaccine is the most effective method of prevention. It
provides 90–100% protection since the year 1982. Nurses are more exposed to the danger of
acquiring the HBV infection; due to their contact with blood or body fluids of infected persons,
spent more times with patients than other health care workers and working in different
departments. Uptake of hepatitis B vaccine and associated factors among nurses in the study area
was not investigated.
Objective: This study was aimed at assessing uptake of hepatitis B vaccine and associated
factors among the nurses in public health facilities in Harar town from October to November,
2020, Harar Eastern Ethiopia.
Method: A facility based cross sectional study was conducted among 224 nurses permanently
recruited and working in Hiwot Fana Specialized University Hospital, Jugal Hospital, Jinela
Health Center, Arategna Health Center and Amirnur Health Center. After the selection of these
health facilities by lottery method, nurses were selected by using simple random sampling from
each health facility proportionally. Socio-demographic characteristics and other descriptive
variables were collected through self administered pre-tested questionnaire. Data was entered in
Epi-data version 3.1 and statistical analysis was computed by SPSS version 22. Logistic
regression analysis was used to examine the association between independent variables and
uptake of HBV vaccine. Odds ratio (AOR) with 95% CI was used as a measure of strength of
association and p-value less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Risk perception of
HBV infection and knowledge of HBV vaccine was measured by taking mean and standard
deviation as cut off point.
Result: A total of 221 staffs nurses were participated in this study and their ages varied between
20 and 60 years and more than half of the respondents 130(58.8%) were female. Among the
study participants, 93(42.1%) were fully vaccinated. Being screened for HBV was associated
with uptake of HBV vaccine with AOR=9.81(4.75-20.29) and p-value= 0.001.
Conclusion and Recommendation: The finding of this study showed low rate of HBV vaccine
coverage among nurses and ABsAg was statically associated with uptake of HBV vaccine..
Therefore, vaccine provision should be implemented for nurses
