Hepatitis B Knowledge Among Healthy Volunteers in Duhok City, Kurdistan Region, Iraq

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a public health problem in Iraq. Healthcare providers have set a plan to eradicate the virus by 2030.
The current study aimed at evaluating the public knowledge in Duhok city, Iraq, about HBV.
A total of 168 subjects were recruited and the data were collected via a self-reporting questionnaire. The subjects were asked about the modes of transmission, symptomatology of HBV, and vaccination.
Totally, 168 persons were recruited in the current study and they were asked 11 questions. In total, 58.6% of the questions were answered correctly; 75% of the participants knew that HBV is transmitted more easily than HIV; 35.2% of the females thought that HIV is transmitted more easily than HBV, which was significantly higher than that of males (20.2%) (P = 0.03). The same trend was found among villagers who thought that HIV is more easily transmitted than HBV (29.5% versus 22.4% for urban residents; P = 0.02). It was also found that only 33.9% of the subjects knew that HBV can be transmitted by toothbrush. In addition, the majority of illiterate participants (75.9%) thought that HBV can be transmitted by food (P = 0.05).
The current study results showed the average levels of knowledge about HBV among participants. More studies are needed to evaluate the level of knowledge after implementing educational programs.