Hepatitis B and C: Knowledge,attitude and perception of medical students at Lahore medical & dental college,Lahore

Results: total 280 medical students were interviewed. among them 25.7% (60) were from first year,21.4 %(60) from second year,24.3% (68) from third year and 28.6%(80) were fourth year medical students. the age ranged from 18-25 years with 41.4% (116) of male students and 58.6%(164) were females. about 80-90% (224-250) showed a good knowledge about transmission and prevention of these infections. 63.6% (178) believe that hepatitis b and c can be transmitted as nosocomial infections and 72.5(203) know that these infections are widely transmitted like hiv/aids. 85% (238) were of the opinion that they are at greater risk of having them due to their profession. among 270 students,200(71.4%) were fully vaccinated against hepatitis b and 32(11.9%) were partially vaccinated.48 (17.1%) were the students who were not vaccinated at all.background and aims: medical students like other health workers are being part of the health care delivery system are exposed to the same size of risk as other health care workers when they come in contact with patients and contaminated instruments. they are the first level of contact between patients and medical care. they are expected to undertake activities related to patient care with the beginning of their clinical years. they are involved in blood transfusion,injections and surgical operations in their practices. they should have awareness about the risk factors and appropriate precautionary measures to avoid these infections in handling these patients.study settings: descriptive cross sectional study.methods: a closed ended questionnaire consisting of questions to evaluate the knowledge regarding hepatitis b and c infection,attitude and perception of the medical students was duly filled by 280 students including first,second,third and fourth year. the data were entered and analyzed using statistical package for social sciences (spss) software version 20.conclusion: level of knowledge was associated with academic grade of the students. overall knowledge was found to be high but vaccination status was low for this particular group. © 2014 pakistan journal of medical and health sciences. all rights reserved.