Healthcare Professionals’ Practice of HIV Post-Exposure Prophylaxis in Clinical Settings in Karachi, Pakistan

Abstract

The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is an important public health concern that has become more prevalent in Pakistan in recent decades. Healthcare professionals (HCPs) are frequently exposed to many HIV-infected patients; as a result, they are more vulnerable to HIV infection due to occupational exposure. Hence, the current study was executed to evaluate HCPs’ knowledge, attitude and practice in terms of post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) for HIV. This cross-sectional study was carried out in several clinical and laboratory settings of Karachi and the HCPs involved in treating patients were surveyed using a structured questionnaire. The Shapiro–Wilk test was performed to establish the normality of the variables. Pearson correlation was employed to identify the relationship between the independent variables considering p-values p = 0.001) belonging to private work settings (OR = 1.84; 95% CI = 1.33–2.35; p p = 0.004, CI = 0.14–0.72), job category (p = 0.0001, CI = 0.16–0.62) and frequency of exposure (p = 0.003, CI = 0.42–11.31) and reporting of occupational exposure. More than half (53.8%) of respondents stated that their institute has a policy for the management of HIV exposures; however, their response was significantly associated with their organization (p = 0.004). The current study shows adequate knowledge revealing a positive attitude among respondents; however, there was a gap between the knowledge and its practical application. Even though many of the HCPs had experienced risky HIV exposure, a lack of reporting was noted in the study.

Keywords

• healthcare professionals
• human immunodeficiency virus
• HIV
• post-exposure prophylaxis
• occupational exposure
• Pakistan