Hepatitis B Immunization Among Healthcare Students: A Narrative Review of Occupational Risk, Seroprotection, and Immunization Management
Vaccines·
- DOI
- 10.3390/vaccines14090732
- PMID
- —
- PMCID
- —
- OpenAlex
- —
- Study type
- Journal article
- Publisher
- MDPI AG
- Article type
- journal-article
- Integrity
- current
Why this research matters now
The abstract identifies healthcare-student HBV exposure, incomplete vaccination documentation, heterogeneous schedules, and variable institutional protocols as occupational-health and prevention concerns. It describes pre-clinical serological assessment and structured immunization management as operational approaches discussed by the review.
Structured evidence summary
Research question
The review examined hepatitis B occupational exposure risk, seroprotection, immunological memory, management of low or absent anti-HBs titres, post-exposure prophylaxis, and immunization challenges among healthcare students.
Study design
This was a narrative review based on searches of PubMed/MEDLINE and Scopus for publications from 2000 through 2025, supplemented by selected seminal references. After duplicate removal and screening, 49 references were included.
Population and setting
The review concerned healthcare students during clinical training, including internationally diverse student cohorts. The setting included academic and occupational-health processes related to pre-clinical immunization assessment and exposure management.
Main findings
The review reports measurable needlestick and sharps-exposure rates during training, with medical students comprising about 30% of exposure events in some cited series and reported underreporting ranging from 19% to 80%. It reports approximately 73.8% pooled seroprotection at entry to clinical training, lower protection in some cohorts vaccinated in infancy, and an anamnestic response after a single booster in 90.9% of students with non-protective titres.
Public-health relevance
The abstract identifies healthcare-student HBV exposure, incomplete vaccination documentation, heterogeneous schedules, and variable institutional protocols as occupational-health and prevention concerns. It describes pre-clinical serological assessment and structured immunization management as operational approaches discussed by the review.
Important limitations
The supplied material describes a narrative review rather than a primary study, and the abstract does not provide detailed appraisal of study quality, methods for deriving the pooled estimates, or the generalizability of the cited series. This summary is limited to the supplied single-article abstract and metadata; the original paper is required for decision-grade interpretation.
GIDS interpretation
The article is discoverable under viral hepatitis, hepatitis B, surveillance, and vaccination classifications, and provides context on hepatitis B immunization practices among healthcare students. It should not be interpreted as confirmation of a current surveillance signal.
Related GIDS surveillance
Literature context does not validate, explain, or change a surveillance signal. Exact and contextual relationships are shown separately.
Evidence relationships
This article has 6 auditable classifier relationships to diseases, places, topics, and study design.