Analysis of the knowledge of hepatitis C virus among the patients

Kowalska Marta Estera, Kalinowski Paweł, Bojakowska Urszula. Analysis of the knowledge of hepatitis C virus among the patients. Journal of Education, Health and Sport. 2018;8(4):107-115. eISNN 2391-8306. DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1216100

http://ojs.ukw.edu.pl/index.php/johs/article/view/5410

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© The Authors 2018;

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This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted, non commercial

use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interests regarding the publication of this paper.

Received: 25.03.2018. Revised: 30.03.2018. Accepted: 10.04.2018.

Analysis of the knowledge of hepatitis C virus among the patients

Marta Estera Kowalska, Paweł Kalinowski, Urszula Bojakowska

Medical University of Lublin, Independent Epidemiology Unit

4/6 Staszica Street, 20-081 Lublin, phone: +48 81 4486942

e-mail: marta.kowalska@umlub.pl

Abstract

Background Hepatitis C is currently one of the most serious epidemiological problems worldwide. Due to no specific method of prevention, prophylactic measures focus on spreading the knowledge about the routes of infection with the virus and risk factors for contracting the disease as well as the situations which increase the probability of virus transmission.

Objective To evaluate of the knowledge of the patients about hepatitis C.

Material and Methods The study was conducted in 2014 with the use of an original questionnaire among 200 patients of the Department of Infectious Diseases at the Medical University of Lublin and the members of support groups for HCV patients in Lublin and Warsaw. The questionnaire included some questions about the risk factors for HCV infection, the course and symptoms of hepatitis C and the sources of information about the disease.

Results Most of the respondents associate the risk of HCV infection with the provision of health services whereas they know much less about other routes of transmission. More than 25% of the subjects describe their level of knowledge about the disease as insufficient.

Conclusions The level of knowledge of the study group is good but it needs to be upgraded as it was pointed out by the respondents themselves. The main sources of knowledge about hepatitis C are doctors and the Internet. Few respondents obtained their knowledge from other media, which may mean that the problem of HCV infection received little publicity, which in turn translates into poor awareness of the general population.

Key words: hepatitis C, HCV, prevention, knowledge