A I Onoabhagbe,
F O Erah
,
P Akhideno
For correspondence:- F Erah Email: francozenith@yahoo.com Tel: +2348033546812
Published: 30 June 2021
Citation: Onoabhagbe AI, Erah FO, Akhideno P. Knowledge, attitude and practice of post exposure prophylaxis for Lassa fever among health care workers in a specialist teaching hospital in South-South Nigeria. Trop J Med Dent Pract 2021; 2(2):47-52 doi: 10.47227/tjmdp.v2i2.2
© 2021 The author(s).
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..
Introduction: Lassa fever is a zoonotic illness caused by an arena virus, first reported in 1969, with several outbreaks occurring till date. It’s a well-recognized occupational risk for health care workers in endemic areas and its nosocomial outbreaks is associated with high mortality. The role for post exposure prophylaxis is vital. The objective of this work is to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice of Post Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP) for Lassa fever disease among health workers with a view of making appropriate recommendations to the authorities where necessary.
Methods: In a descriptive cross-sectional study, 300 healthcare workers (HCWs) in a tertiary health care facility were surveyed using self-administered questionnaire that focused on knowledge, attitude and practice of post exposure prophylaxis (PEP). Based on the data collected, good knowledge, positive attitude and good practice of post exposure prophylaxis (PEP) were determined as the proportion of respondents who scored 75% and above in each of the category. Chi square test was used to find out the association between two variables with a level of significance put at 95% and p<0.05.
Results: Majority of the 300 respondents (97.0%) had good knowledge of PEP. A higher proportion of them (65.7%) also had a good attitude towards PEP and knowledge of PEP had a strong positive association with attitude. Majority of respondents (69.2%) who admitted to risky exposure to Lassa fever took PEP and majority (72.2%) completed the prescribed regime. Reasons for non-completion of PEP was mainly due to adverse effects of ribavirin.
Conclusion: The knowledge, attitude and practice of PEP against Lassa fever among HCWs surveyed was good which is a clear sign of adequate orientation of staff concerning Lassa fever.
