Chhavi N, Srivastava G, Waseem M, Yadav A, Singh S, Singh R, Goel A. Parents’s knowledge and awareness about hepatitis B can influence the vaccination of their children. World J Virol 2024; 13(2): 92115 [PMID: 38984086 DOI: 10.5501/wjv.v13.i2.92115]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Amit Goel, BSc, DNB, MBBS, MD, MNAMS, Professor, Department of Hepatology, Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Raebareli Road, Lucknow 226014, Uttar Pradesh, India. agoel.ag@gmail.com
Research Domain of This Article
Virology
Article-Type of This Article
Observational Study
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Virol. Jun 25, 2024; 13(2): 92115 Published online Jun 25, 2024. doi: 10.5501/wjv.v13.i2.92115
Parents’s knowledge and awareness about hepatitis B can influence the vaccination of their children
Nanda Chhavi, Geetika Srivastava, Mariya Waseem, Abhishek Yadav, Surender Singh, Rajani Singh, Amit Goel
Nanda Chhavi, Geetika Srivastava, Mariya Waseem, Department of Paediatrics, Era’s Lucknow Medical College, Lucknow 226003, Uttar Pradesh, India
Abhishek Yadav, Medical Consultant, National Disease Control Program, National Health Mission, Lucknow 226003, Uttar Pradesh, India
Surender Singh, Rajani Singh, Amit Goel, Department of Hepatology, Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow 226014, Uttar Pradesh, India
Author contributions: Nanda C, Srivastava G, Waseem M recruited the participants, collected data, analyzed data and prepared the first draft of manuscript; Yadav A, Singh S, Singh R, Goel A conceptualized the idea, designed the study, reviewed and edited the manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: Study was approved by the institute ethic committee (Approval No. ELMC & H/R_Cell/EC/2020/20).
Informed consent statement: All subjects understood and agreed to the study protocol and voluntarily signed the informed consent form.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Dr. Amit has nothing to disclose.
Data sharing statement: Raw data will be available with the corresponding authors and the same could be provided, after securing institute ethic committee approval, on a logical request.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement—checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement—checklist of items.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Amit Goel, BSc, DNB, MBBS, MD, MNAMS, Professor, Department of Hepatology, Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Raebareli Road, Lucknow 226014, Uttar Pradesh, India. agoel.ag@gmail.com
Received: January 15, 2024 Revised: April 4, 2024 Accepted: April 18, 2024 Published online: June 25, 2024 Processing time: 160 Days and 17.6 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Birth-dose (Hep-BD) followed by three additional doses (Hep-B3) of hepatitis B virus (HBV) vaccine are key to eliminating HBV by 2030. Unfortunately, Hep-BD and Hep-B3 coverage in our country is poor.
AIM
To studied the parent’s knowledge and awareness about HBV infection, its prevention, consequences and vaccination.
METHODS
Parents of 6 months to 8 years old children were interviewed to assess their knowledge & awareness about hepatitis B, its transmission, prevention, illness caused by this, and vaccination. Eighteen close-ended questions were administered, and responses were recorded as ‘yes’, ‘no’, or ‘not sure’. HBV knowledge score was calculated based on the sum of correct answers. Each correct response scored one point and incorrect, missing or ‘not sure’ responses received no points. Categorical data are presented as number (%) and numerical data are expressed as median. Data were compared using Chi2 tests and level of significance was kept as P < 0.05.
RESULTS
Parents (58.3% mothers) of 384 children (89.9% age < 5 years; 82% age-appropriately vaccinated) were included. Three hundred and twenty-two (83.9%) children were Hep-B3 vaccinated. 94.3%, 87.5%, and 29.2% parents knew about polio, tetanus, and hepatitis B vaccine. Overall, 41.2%, 15.8%, and 23% parents knew about hepatitis B transmission, consequences of infection, and prevention respectively. Only 7.6% parents knew about three-dose schedule of hepatitis B vaccination. Only 23% parents believed that vaccine could prevent HBV, 15.7% knew that HBV affects liver. Parents of Hep-B3 vaccinated children were significantly more aware about HBV than the parents of unvaccinated children (P < 0.05 for 17/18 questions).
CONCLUSION
The knowledge and awareness among the parents about hepatitis B is poor. The Increasing knowledge/awareness about HBV among parents may improve Hep-B3 vaccination coverage.
Core Tip: Hepatitis B infection can be prevented with vaccination. Birth dose followed by three doses of hepatitis B vaccine in infancy is one of the key intervention to prevent hepatitis B transmission. Unfortunately, the coverage of hepatitis B vaccination among newborns are not adequate in India. Our article identified that the parents have poor knowledge about the hepatitis B and increasing knowledge/awareness about hepatitis B virus among parents may improve Hepatitis B vaccine coverage in the country.
