Viral hepatitis – knowledge of health care students

Summary

In the 5th year of the masters degree in hygiene and epidemiology at the 1st Medical Faculty of Charles University in Prague, the students must undertake a short field study. The students must obtain process and analyse data using descriptive epidemiological methods. This enables them to assess their knowledge of the field and their practical abilities, e.g. in formulating a questionnaire. Each student’s task is to obtain information from 10 other students from different departments by means of a simple questionnaire on the theme of viral hepatitis. At the end of one semester (school year 2006/2007) one student performed metaanalysis of the questionnaires and compared knowledge of the students from various departments of the Medical Faculty and from different years (master and bachelor studies) and knowledge of the students from a college for paramedics. A total of 273 completed questionnaires were evaluated, of which 83 were from students in the 1st and 2nd years of master studies, 71 from students in the 5th and 6th years of master studies, 84 from 2nd year bachelor students (specializing in ergotherapy, physiotherapy, nursing and adictology), 20 from 1st year college students and 15 from 3rd year college students (specializing in rescue worker). The students questioned showed rather good basic epidemiological knowledge about hepatitis. Somewhat worse was their knowledge concerning the possibilities of active immunization and personal health protection.

Key words:
professional risks in health service, viral hepatitis, students’ knowledge.