TY - JOUR T1 - Research Paper: Knowledge and Behavior of General Dental Practitioners about hepatitis B virus in Qazvin city TT - JF - gums-dent JO - gums-dent VL - 9 IS - 2 UR - http://3dj.gums.ac.ir/article-1-390-en.html Y1 - 2020 SP - 14 EP - 18 KW - Vaccination KW - Hepatitis B KW - Knowledge KW - Dentists N2 - Introduction: Hepatitis B is a major public health problem globally affecting two billion people. Assessing knowledge and increasing awareness about HBV are part of the main actions against hepatitis B. This research was intended to assess the knowledge and awareness regarding hepatitis B among dentists. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional, descriptive, questionnaire-based study was conducted among 105 general dentists in Qazvin using a structured questionnaire containing two sections. In the first section, recorded data was about age, gender, and the number of years that the participant was graduated. The second section contained 22 questions of which 18 questions assessed the knowledge of dentists about HBV. Their knowledge was scored from 1 to 18 and then categorized as good, moderate, and poor. Data obtained from research questionnaires were analyzed by SPSS software version 21 using Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests. Values of p < 0.05 were considered statistically significant. Results: Effect of gender, age, and number of years that the participants were graduated, were not significant on the awareness of participants. (P=0.928 and P=0.822, P=0.938, respectively) The mean of their knowledge was 6.37±2.44. 77.1% (54) of participants had poor knowledge and 18.6% (13) of participants had moderate knowledge. Only 4.3% (3) of participants had good knowledge about HBV Conclusion:Overall knowledge of dentists about HBV was poor in the current study.It is essential to improve the knowledge of dentists about HBV and Hepatitis B. Introduction Hepatitis B is a major public health problem globally. Hepatitis B is caused by the hepatitis B virus (HBV) and is a potentially life-threatening liver infection leading to liver cirrhosis and liver cancer.(1-3) About two billion people have been found to be infected with HBV around the world, of which 350 million patients are facing chronic liver diseases and 600,000 are dying because of hepatitis B, annually. This fact leads hepatitis B to be the 10th cause of death worldwide.(3-5) Transmission of Hepatitis B is through infected blood and body fluids; which can occur through direct contact with blood and saliva or through indirect contact (contaminated instruments and environments). This makes medical, surgical, and dental procedures to be a common route for HBV transmission.(4-8) Dentists among the other co-medical workers are more vulnerable to hepatitis B for frequently getting exposed to blood and saliva in daily practice. (1,4) A recent study in Laos demonstrated that 86% of students in the healthcare professions had poor knowledge about Hepatitis B.(9) World Health Assembly addresses that assessing knowledge and increasing awareness is part of the main actions and cornerstones in the prevention of hepatitis B along with effective vaccination.(1-2,5-6) Therefore, this research was intended to assess the knowledge and awareness regarding hepatitis B among dentists. Materials and methods This cross-sectional, descriptive, questionnaire-based study was conducted among 105 general dentists in Qazvin to assess their M3 10.52547/3dj.9.2.14 ER -