Elsevier

Vaccine

Volume 26, Issue 11, 10 March 2008, Pages 1408-1410
Vaccine

Influenza vaccination acceptance among health-care workers: A nationwide survey

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2008.01.049Get rights and content

Summary

We conducted a nationwide survey to investigate reasons for influenza vaccine uptake or refusal among health-care workers (HCWs) in Greece. Vaccination rates increased with increasing age, and among HCWs working in Northern Greece, in direct contact with patients, and with influenza vaccination in the past. Self-protection was the main reason for vaccination (89.1%), whereas 55.2% of HCWs reported vaccination to protect patients. Main reasons for refusing vaccination were perception of not being at risk for influenza (43.2%) and fear of vaccine adverse effects (33.4%).

Introduction

Nosocomial outbreaks of influenza are associated with considerable morbidity and mortality among patients with underlined diseases and an excess economic impact. Health-care workers (HCWs) constitute a significant reservoir for nosocomial influenza [1], [2], [3]. Although HCWs vaccination has been consistently recommended by public-health authorities as the main measure for preventing nosocomial influenza, vaccine uptake among HCWs remains low worldwide [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16]. We prospectively conducted a survey in order to identify reasons for adherence or refusal of the national recommendations for influenza vaccination among HCWs in Greece.

Section snippets

Materials and method

In September 2006, the Hellenic Center for Disease Control and Prevention requested from all 136 public hospitals in Greece to record those HCWs vaccinated against influenza. Data collected per vaccinated HCW were: age, profession (physician, nurse, paramedical, technical, administrative personnel), history of influenza vaccination in the past, and reasons for vaccination. HCWs were defined as all persons employed in a hospital with or without a health-care occupation, including permanent,

Results

A total of 132 public hospitals participated in the survey (response rate: 97%), sending 8062 questionnaires (8.85% of 91,071 HCWs). Of those, 5270 concerned all vaccinated HCWs and 2792 concerned unvaccinated HCWs (3.25% of 85,801 unvaccinated HCWs). During 2006–2007, the mean HCWs influenza vaccination rate was 5.8%. Table 1 shows HCWs characteristics per vaccination status. The overwhelming majority (89.1%) of vaccinated HCWs did so in order to protect their self, whereas 59.1% of then were

Discussion

Despite the fact that influenza vaccination has been recommended for more than two decades in Greece and following an intensive campaign to promote influenza vaccine uptake among HCWs during 2005–2006 [14], [15], influenza vaccination rates remain low. Increased age was significantly associated with higher vaccination rates, in accordance with others [5], [11], [12], [13]. Physicians and nurses had the higher vaccination rates and were more likely to get vaccinated in order to protect their

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