Prevalence of hepatitis B virus infection and associated factors among pregnant women attending antenatal care at Wolaita Sodo University Comprehensive and Specialized Hospital, Southern Ethiopia, 2024: an institution based cross-sectional study

Background Hepatitis B virus is a hepatotropic deoxyribonucleic acid virus that occurs because of the immune-mediated killing of infected liver cells. Around 1.45 million persons died yearly from hepatitis B virus infection. Previous studies done in hepatitis B virus infection used the focused antenatal care while currently World Health Organization recommends eight contacts for antenatal care. In addition previous studies did not address variable like number of antenatal care contact. Objectives The aim of this study was to assess prevalence of hepatitis B virus infection and associated factors among pregnant women attending antenatal care at Wolaita Sodo University Comprehensive and Specialized Hospital, Southern Ethiopia 2024 Methods An institutional-based cross-sectional study design was conducted from August 1 to 30, 2024. A systematic random sampling technique was used to select 141 study participants. Data was cleaned and entered to Epidata version 3.1 and were exported to SPSS version 26.0 software for analysis. Variables with p < 0.25 from the simple binary logistic regression were entered into a multivariable logistic regression model. P-value < 0.05 with 95% CI was considered to declare a result as a statistically significant association. Descriptive statistic was used to describe the data in form of text, tables, and charts. Results In this study the prevalence of hepatitis B virus infection among pregnant mothers was 5.9% in Wolaita Sodo University Comprehensive and Specialized Hospital. being unmarried [AOR (0.18), 95% CI (0.07, 0.48); p-value (0.001)], having history of abortion [AOR (4.8), 95% CI: 1.39, 16.23); p-value (0.013)], tattooing [AOR (11.9), 95% CI (3.42, 41.39); p-value (0.000)], and residence [AOR (7.6), 95% CI (1.36, 42.3); p-value (0.021)] had statistically significant association with positivity of HBV infection. Conclusions Sero-prevalence in study area among pregnant women shows intermediate endemicity. In this study tattooing and having abortion are modifiable factors associated with HBV. Interventions should be targeted on those modifiable and non- modifiable variables by all concerned bodies.