Awareness,prejudice and discrimination towards HBV infection in general population in Shanghai

Objective To explore statuses of awareness,prejudice and discrimination towards hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection and their related factors among residents of Shanghai municipality.Methods A representative sample of general population (n=4 760) was randomly recruited via multi-stage stratified sampling from 8 districts in Shanghai.Demographics,awareness,prejudice and discrimination towards HBV infection of the participants were collected with a self-designed questionnaire.Non-conditional logistic regression analysis was applied to explore influencing factors of social prejudice and discrimination of HBV infection.Results The majority of the participants had the education of high school or above and the mean age of the participants was 45.87±22.30 years.The information sources of knowledge about viral hepatitis control and prevention were mainly television,radio,and pamphlets.The correct answer rate for questions "Would do you accept hepatitis B vaccination?" and "Is viral hepatitis is contagious?" was about 80%(3 808/4 760),whereas the rate was only 15.08%(718/4 760)for the question on transmission routes of viral hepatitis.Of the participants,19.43%(925/4 760)and 35.63% (1 697/4 760) showed social prejudice and discriminative attitudes towards HBV infection.Non-conditional logistic regression analysis indicated that the promoting factors for eradicating social prejudice and discrimination towards HBV infection were aged ≤60 years,being familiar with prevention knowledge of viral hepatitis,acceptance of hepatitis B vaccination,and willingness to acquire HBV related knowledge from web,newspaper and pamphlets.Conclusion The presence of prejudice and discrimination against individuals with HBV infection is mainly due to the lack of HBV related knowledge among the residents of Shanghai,suggesting patterns and contents of health education on HBV infections should be adjusted.