hepatitis b knowledge among healthy volunteers in duhok city, kurdistan region, iraq

Background: hepatitis b virus (hbv) is a public health problem in iraq. healthcare providers have set a plan to eradicate the virus by 2030. objectives: the current study aimed at evaluating the public knowledge in duhok city, iraq, about hbv. methods: 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. results: 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). conclusions: 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.