Publication:

Prevalence of hepatitis B virus among applicants for recruitment into Nigeria police force in Osun State, southwestern Nigeria

Background Police officers are likely to have blood-borne virus exposure like hepatitis B virus, while on duty. It is important to know the hepatitis B status of applicants at entry point of recruitment into the force to avoid employing applicants that can spread the virus to the citizens. This study determined the prevalence of hepatitis B infection among applicants for recruitment into the Nigerian police force in Osun State, southwestern Nigeria.

Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted among 165 applicants from 30 LGAs in Osun State, selected using a multistage sampling technique, research data was aloof from the recruitments’ exercise registers and records, univariate, bivariate and multivariate were done using IBM SPSS version 25.0 and statistical level of significance was set at P<0.05.

Results The mean age of respondents was 22.08±2.428. The Prevalence of HBV was 43.6%. There was a statistically significant association between the applicants' HBV status and their socio-demographic status p=0.014. Binary logistic regression analysis revealed that: applicants from Ila, Ede north and Irewole LGAs are eight times less likely to have hepatitis B virus (OR: 0.124 and 0.120), those from Ejigbo and Isokan LGAs are seven times less likely to have HBV (OR: 0.135 and 0.132) and applicants from Odo-Otin LGA of Osun state are eleven times less likely to have HBV (OR: 0.088) compared to other local governments areas.

Conclusions More than two-fifths of the applicants were tested positive for HBV, this proportion cannot be overlooked as they could exposed colleague, or citizen to the infection.