Knowledge, Attitude and Practice Towards Sexually Transmitted Infection Among Health Care Workers and Students of Tertiary Care Center of Lalitpur: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Introduction: Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) directly affect sexual and reproductive health through stigmatization, infertility, cancers, and troubles during pregnancy, like perinatal infections. Even though Nepal is regarded as a "low-incidence" country for HIV infection, recent sero-prevalence data indicate that the number of STI/HIV infections has increased significantly. Since health care workers deal with HIV and STIs regularly and are a susceptible group, it is expected that they have good knowledge and practice about the transmission of HIV and STIs.

Materials and Methods: This is a descriptive cross-sectional study conducted at the Department of Dermatology and Venereology of KIST Medical College and Teaching Hospital, Nepal. Any healthcare worker and medical students of the age group 15 to 49 years working and studying respectively in the institute were included in the study. Frequency and percentage of the data were calculated. A chi-square test was applied to determine the association between two categorical variables, and p p-value less than 0.05 was considered significant.

Results: Out of 142 participants, 97.2% recognized HIV and 92.3% recognized syphilis, but only 73.3% identified hepatitis B as an STI, and just 12.7% recognized trichomoniasis. This data shows a gap in knowledge of non-HIV STIs. Except for the practice of using masks and gloves in the workplace, all other variables show statistically significant differences between designations.

Conclusions: The majority of the participants knew HIV, syphilis, and gonorrhea as STIs. But knowledge was not satisfactory with respect to symptoms of STIs/HIV/AIDS and the disease course of STIs/HIV/AIDS.