Journal of Community Medicine & Health Education
Open Access

Research Article

Primary Care Providers Knowledge, Attitude and Practices Related to Hepatitis C Screening and Treatment in the Oral Direct Acting Antiviral Agents Era

Falade-Nwulia O^1*, McAdams-Mahmoud A¹, Irvin R¹, Niculescu A¹, Page KR¹, Mix M¹, Thomas DL¹, Sulkowski MS¹ and Mehta SH²

¹Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, USA

²Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, USA

*Corresponding Author:

Oluwaseun Falade-Nwulia, MBBS, MPH
725 N. Wolfe Street, Suite 215, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Tel: +443-287-1964
Fax: 410-502-7029
E-mail: ofalade1@jhmi.edu

Received date: October 05, 2016; Accepted date: October 26, 2016; Published date: October 28, 2016

Citation: Falade-Nwulia O, McAdams-Mahmoud A, Irvin R, Niculescu A, Page KR, et al. (2016) Primary Care Providers Knowledge, Attitude and Practices Related to Hepatitis C Screening and Treatment in the Oral Direct Antiviral Agents Era. J Community Med Health Educ 6:481. doi:10.4172/2161-0711.1000481

Copyright: © 2016 Falade-Nwulia O, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Background: There are over 3 million Americans infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV). Despite recent advances in HCV treatment, a major barrier to care remains a limited number of treaters. HCV therapy provision by primary care providers (PCPs) could expand access by increasing the pool of HCV treating clinicians. Objective: To characterize current HCV care practices, willingness and self-efficacy of PCPs to become HCV treaters. Design, participants and main measures: Two hundred and seventy one PCPs were identified from community clinics affiliated with a large academic center and 4 large federally qualified health centers in Baltimore, MD. An internet-based survey was administered to assess provider demographics, clinical practice site and willingness to provide HCV care. Factors associated with willingness to provide HCV care were examined using odds ratios (OR). Key results: Among 129 (48%) PCPs who responded, the majority (70%) had an MD/DO degree and were white (60%). Only a few PCPs, 12 (10%), had treated at least 1 patient for HCV in the prior year. Although only 22% agreed that HCV treatment should be provided by PCPs, 84% were interested in more HCV training. Willingness to provide treatment was strongly linked to having a high proportion of HCV-infected patients (>20% versus <20%; OR 3.9; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.5-10) and availability of other services at the primary care site including HIV treatment (OR 6.5; 95% CI 2.5- 16.5), substance abuse treatment (OR 3.3; 95% CI 1.3-8.4) and mental health services (OR 4.9; 95% CI 2.0-12.1). Conclusion: These data suggest that efforts to expand HCV medical provider capacity will be most impactful if they initially focus HCV training on PCPs with a high prevalence of HCV among their patients and existing systems to support HCV care.

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