Hepatitis B Virus Seroprevalance in the Pregnant Population Admitting to an Education and Research Hospital in Istanbul

OBJECTIVE: To investigate Hepatitis B virus (HBV) seroprevalance in pregnant women and establish the relation between sociodemographic characteristics, risk factors and HBV seroprevalance. DESIGN: A cross sectional study. SETTING: A tertiary referral center. PATIENTS: A group of 236 pregnant women between 17-44 years of age, admitted to pregnancy outpatient clinic between May 2007 – November 2007 were enrolled. INTERVENTIONS: No intervention. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Age, place of birth, health insurance, area, education, occupation, level of income, obstetric history, history of any past operations, history of dental operation, blood and/or blood products transfusion history, personal history of jaundice, family history, immunization for hepatitis B were recorded. HBV seroprevalance was investigated by serologic tests for Hepatitis B surface antigen (HbsAg) and Hepatitis B surface antigen antibody (Anti-HbsAg) examined by ELISA. Hepatitis B virus seroprevalance was defined as the ratio of women either positive for HbsAg or positive for Anti-HBsAg over the whole study population. Chi-square test, Fisher’s Exact test and logistic regression test analysis were performed. RESULTS: We detected HbsAg seropositivity in nine (3.9%) and Anti-HBsAg seropositivity in 37 patients (20.9%). HBV seroprevalance was calculated as 23.7%. The risk of being seropositive for HBV was related to health insurance type (Green Card - Yeşil Kart) (OR = 4.476, 95% CI = 1.942-10.320, p = 0.001), personal history of jaundice (OR = 3.607, 95% CI = 1.258-10.339, p = 0.017), family history of jaundice (OR = 1.795, 95% CI = 0.806-4.000, p = 0.152). CONCLUSIONS: The HBV seroprevalance in our pregnant population was found to be similar to that detected in the studies of general population of Turkey. The type of health insurance (Green Card - Yeşil Kart), personal history of jaundice and family history of jaundice were found to be the risk factors associated with seropositivity for HBV infection in pregnant women