Mona Abd-El Sabour Hassan^1,, Magda Ali Mohamed¹, Ateya Megahed Ibrahim¹

Background: Hepatitis B and hepatitis C have some common epidemiological characteristics, and have infected millions of people throughout the world. During haircut, shave, or pedicure, barbers may accidentally expose to their clients' blood, transmit their own infection to them, or transmit the infection from one client to another. Aim: to evaluate the effect of health educational guidelines for barbers about hepatitis B and C in Port Said City. Design: A quasi-experimental research design with pre-post-test was utilized for this study. Sample size: It was carried on 245 barbers; 187 males and 58 females. Setting: the study was conducted at all certified barbers shops (82 shops) located in Port Said city. Tools: Three tools were used to collect data, knowledge of barber about HCV and HBV questionnaire, observational checklist for barbers ’practice regarding HCV and HBV & barbers' attitude scale. Results: 78 % of the study group had poor total level of knowledge, 97.3% had unsatisfactory total practice as well as 95.2% had total negative attitude before conducting the educational guidelines. A highly statistically significant improvement was detected after implementation of the guidelines in their total level of good knowledge (80.7%), satisfactory practice (94.6%) and positive attitude (97.8%). There was a statistically significant positive correlation between the study group's total knowledge score and total practice score. Conclusion: More than three quarters of the study group had poor total knowledge, most of them had negative attitude as well as unsatisfactory total practice regarding HCV and HBV before application of the educational guidelines, a remarkable improvement in knowledge, practice and attitude after implementation of the health educational guidelines, had been detected with highly statistically significant differences between pre and post phases. Also the implementation of the educational guidelines had been the most predictor variable. Recommendation; More educational programs for improving knowledge, practices and healthy attitude of barbers should be integrated into their training programs, evaluation of the long-term effects of such education programs are also recommended. Replication of similar specific studies using large probability samples at different settings is highly recommended.

Barbers, Educational Guidelines, Hepatitis B and C