Objective: Since many people with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection are asymptomatic, the occurrence of HCV infection and the role of risk factors among the health-care workers in Poland is unknown and not yet investigated.
Methods: In order to determine the risk of HCV infection with regard to different occupational exposures and medical history, we carried out a cross-sectional study of a cohort of 4248 health-care workers in pomeranian voivodship, Northern Poland.
Main observations: The prevalence of positive anti-HCV antibodies was 1.3% (56/4248) among health-care workers. The independent predictors of positive result was the history of dialysis odds ratio (OR) 12.05 95% confidence interval (CI)1.37-105.68, history of surgery OR 1.9 95% CI 1.11-3.27 and work with direct contact with the patient OR 0.48 95% CI 0.26-0.9. We did not find any significant difference between differentjob groups. However the highest risk was related to "untrained staff" group: OR 1.87 95% CI 0.61-5.75 (doctors were the reference category because of the lowest prevalence).
Conclusions: No excessive risk was found among the health-care workers as a whole or among the different categories of personnel, confirming the role of surgery and dialysis as risk factors and the beneficial role of preventative measures when working with direct contact with patients.