Prevalence of hepatitis b in blood donors at the coordinating blood center of the state of piauí, Brazil

Infection Hepatitis B virus is one of the world's biggest public health problems due to its magnitude and because it is related to chronic manifestations such as cirrhosis and primary liver cancer. The objective of this study was to analyze the epidemiological profile of donors infected with Hepatitis B virus and characterize them according to the following variables: sex, origin, age, skincolor, level of education, marital status and year of donation, as also verify if sex acts as a risk factor for contamination. This is a quantitative, retrospective, analytical and descriptive field research based on information retrieved from the database of the Blood centerof Piauí on a total of 233,927 individuals who made donations from January 2008 to December 2013. Of this total sample, 562 individuals had a positive result (case group), 233,365 had a negative result (control group). The Chi-square test was used to analyze data in the Statistical Package for Social Science. The present study showed that the seroprevalent epidemiological profile is of individuals residing in Teresina (68.6%), between the ages of 18 and 29 (45.7%, p = 0.07), mestizo (p = 0.11), with complete secondary education (p = 0.01), single (56.8%, p = 0.02), and with the highest number of seropositive cases in 2008 (p = 0.00). We also concluded that males showed greater seropositivity for hepatitis B infection, with 66.7% (p = 0.024) of the cases.