Abstract

Every year more than 250,000 health workers are exposed to HIV through their healthcare setting, and as a result,
more than 1000 health workers get infected with HIV, most of these exposures occur in developing countries where
HIV prevalence is very high in the general population and access to treatment is limited. To assess the knowledge
and practice of health workers towards PEP against HIV at Hoima Regional Referral Hospital (HRRH), a descriptive
cross-sectional study was done. The questionnaire was used as the main tool for data collection and data used for
data analysis. Simple random sampling was used to collect data from 100 health workers. The study shows a low
PEP usage percentage by 16 of the 100 subjects in the study, with the majority (14/16) of those who had used PEP
and those (78/80) who had never, defining it as prevention against HIV establishment. The study established that
having heard about PEP and knowing how it works did not significantly correlate with using PEP at p-values of
0.701(0.77(0.06-7.43) and 0.0190.77(1.40-3.55), respectively. There was a good knowledge of PEP among health
workers, majority 14(87.5%) of those who had used PEP and those 78(92.9%) who had never used PEP knew it was
used as a protection strategy against HIV More so, having knowledge of the reason for using was a significant
correlate to using PEP with an odd ratio of 0.09(0.05-1.76 and p-value of 0.003, at least 6(7.1%) didn’t know the
exact time for PEP use. There was low PEP usage among health workers, majority 13(81.3%) said they had used it
once, while only 3(18.7%) said more than once, the majority of reasons identified for using PEP were needle prick
injuries 14(87.5%), with all those who had previously used PEP willing to use again, while at least 14(16.7%) of those
who had not used PEP previously were not willing to use it. The study concludes that there was good knowledge
(95.2%) among health workers on PEP against HIV, but was low practice (16%) in regards to its usage. Health
workers should be health educated about PEP and more should be availed to all health facilities for easy accessibility.