Prevalence and Risk Factors of Hepatitis B Infection in Pregnant Women of Iran: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Introduction: Perinatal transmission is one of the most common routes of hepatitis B virus (HBV) transmission in the worldwide. In Iran, more than 50 of HBV carriers have received the infection in this route. Therefore, this review study was performed with aim to determine the prevalence and risk factors of HBV infection in pregnant women of Iran. Methods: Current study was conducted based on PRISMA checklist for systematic review and meta-analysis studies. To access to the English and Persian documents, two independent authors searched Scopus, PubMed, ScienceDirect, Cochrane, Web of Science (ISI), Springer, Online Library Wiley, Magiran, Iranmedex, SID, Medlib, IranDoc and Google Scholar search engine up to January 2016 by using Mesh keywords including: Prevalence, Hepatitis B, Pregnant women, Pregnancy, Risk Factors, HBsAg and Iran. Data was analyzed using the random-effects model for HBV prevalence and fixed-effects model for risk factors of HBV via Stata software (Version 11.2). Results: A total of 36 eligible studies with sample size of 64,195 pregnant women in Iran, HBV prevalence was estimated 0.5. Minimum and maximum of this range were related to the North (0.4) and East (1.6) of the Iran. HBV prevalence in urban and rural pregnant women was estimated 1.1 and 1.2, respectively. HBV prevalence among housewife pregnant women was 1.7 and employee pregnant women was 0.1. The frequency of HBsAb>10 mIU/ml in Iranian pregnant women were calculated 40. Among the risk factors, illiteracy, occupation, blood transfusion, abortion and husband addiction were significant related with prevalence of HBV (P 0.05). Conclusion: The lowest prevalence of HBV in Iran was related to pregnant women and less than the general population. History of blood transfusions, husband addiction, illiteracy, occupation and abortion are associated with HBV in Iranian pregnant women.