North Central Nigerian Primary Health Care Workers' Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices about HIV Post-Exposure Prophylaxis

The prevention of HIV/AIDS among health care workers (HCWs) continues to be a major concern. Human immunodeficiency virus infection puts the public's health at risk and kills many people, including healthcare workers. The risk of HIV transmission among healthcare workers during job exposure is becoming a real concern. The purpose of this study is to evaluate South-East Nigerian primary health care workers' knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding HIV post-exposure prophylaxis. Four hundred respondents were chosen using a descriptive cross-sectional survey design and multistage sampling approaches. SPSS software, in its 25th version, has been used to analyze the data. For the main outcome variables—knowledge, attitude, and practice about the vaccination schedule—mean scores have been produced. A P-value of less than 0.05 was deemed significant. The results of this study indicate that 218 (54.5%) of the respondents were male, 182 (45.5%) were female, 312 (78.0%) had good knowledge, and 336 (84.0%) had good attitude regarding post exposure prophylaxis for HIV/AIDS. The respondents' age, religion, tribe, marital status, and year of practice were found to be significantly associated with their knowledge of post exposure prophylaxis for HIV/AIDS at X2=32.035, p=0.000), (X2=16.442, p=0.001), (X2=372.429, p=0.000), (X2=15.777, p=0.003), and (X2=22.988, p=0.000) at p<0.05, while the respondents' gender did not significantly affect the study. The majority of individuals exhibited good levels of PEP knowledge, attitude, and practice, according to the research. It is imperative that all medical personnel understand the HIV PEP policy in hospitals. Public health professionals must run health education initiatives to assist individuals understand and utilize HIV prevention and treatment (PEP) in order to lower the risk of HIV infection at work. Keywords: Primary Healthcare, Infection, HIV and Post-Exposure Prophylaxis,