Abstracto

Knowledge, attitude, practice and associated factors towards post exposure prophylaxis to HIV infection among health care professionals in Debre Markos town public health institutions, Northwest Ethiopia, 2017

Biyadgie Aschale, Yenesew Tamir, Girma Alem*

Background: HIV/AIDS is being considered as one of the major health problem and an occupational health hazard among health care personnel. Although avoiding contact with infected blood is one of the primary strategies of preventing occupationally acquired Human Immunodeficiency Virus infection, appropriate post-exposure management is an important element in work place safety. Objective: To assess knowledge, attitude, practice and associated factors towards post exposure prophylaxis to HIV infection among Health Care Professionals. Methods: A quantitative descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted using self-administered questionnaire. After data was coded, entered in to Epi data 3.1, and transported to SPSS version20 for analysis. To see the Association between dependent and independent variables binary and multi logistic regression was done. Results: Among 202 participants, more than two third 120 (59.4%) were male and 152 (75.2%) in the age group of 20- 30 years and the mean age was 29.46 years and SD5.961. The study finding revealed that 36.1% inadequate knowledge towards PEP. About 30.2% had unfavorable attitude towards PEP. With regard to practice from 67(33.2%) of exposed respondents, 29 (43.3%) took PEP. According to this finding 53.2% of health professionals were started PEP after 1 hour of exposure. Profession and attitude were strongly associated with knowledge of study participants (P=0.014, and P=0.002). Knowledge was significantly associated with attitude (P=0.001). Conclusion and Recommendation: Despite adequate knowledge and favorable attitude towards PEP for HIV, this study revealed that there were delay initiation, low use and incomplete use of the prescribed drug of PEP. So, health care personnel need to improve their practice on PEP of HIV through different training program related to PEP.