TY - JOUR
T1 - Exploring vaccination coverage and attitudes of Health Care Workers towards influenza vaccine in Cyprus
AU - Papageorgiou , Chrysi
AU - Mazeri, Stella
AU - Karaiskakis, Marios
AU - Constantinou, Despo
AU - Nikolaides, Christoforos
AU - Katsouris, Savvas
AU - Patsalou , Maria
AU - Kourouzidou, Demetra
AU - Pantelas , George
AU - Koliou, Maria
N1 - Funding Information:
To the Pancyprian Medical Association, the Nurses and Midwives Association of Cyprus, the State Health Services Organization of Cyprus and the large private hospitals in Cyprus for their collaboration and assistance. We also like to thank the participants for their valuable time. This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. All authors made substantial contribution to the manuscript. PC, KM and MS contributed to the conception and design of the study. PC, MS, KM, CD, NC, KS, PM, KD, PG contributed to the collection of data. SM did the analysis and interpretation of data. PC, SM and KM drafted the article. All authors revised critically and approved the final version of the manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2022/3/15
Y1 - 2022/3/15
N2 - Seasonal influenza is a major public health problem. Nosocomial influenza is particularly concerning as it may affect patients at high risk for complications. Unvaccinated health care workers (HCWs) are an important source of nosocomial influenza and therefore a priority target group for vaccination. Despite the fact that some European countries have high coverage rates such as UK (76.8% in season 2020/21), others continue to have low coverage rates for influenza vaccines. This study aims to estimate vaccination coverage in HCWs in Cyprus, an island country located in the Eastern Mediterranean region and describe their attitudes towards influenza vaccination. Methods: This is a questionnaire based, nation-wide study assessing flu vaccination coverage in 2019–2020 and attitudes related to vaccination acceptance, of 962 HCWs in both public and private health care facilities. Multivariable logistic regression was used to investigate factors associated with flu vaccination status. Results: Flu vaccination coverage was estimated as 31.8%. The top two reasons for getting vaccinated were to protect their family (81.4%) and themselves (77.4%). The top two reasons for not getting immunised, besides “no particular reason” (25.7%), included disbelief for vaccine effectiveness (21.5%) and safety (29.3%). The regression model showed that doctors compared to nurses had 10 times the odds of being vaccinated. Other factors positively associated with flu vaccination were encouragement by the supervisor, having sufficient knowledge on flu and flu vaccination and easy access to vaccination. A percentage of 54.8% of participants stated that COVID-19 pandemic strongly or somewhat influenced their decision to get vaccinated. Conclusion: Flu vaccination coverage in HCWs in Cyprus is rather low, similar to some other European countries. Barriers and facilitators in this study can be considered in strategies to increase flu vaccination uptake. Such questionnaire-based surveys should be repeated in order to evaluate effectiveness of targeted vaccination campaigns.
AB - Seasonal influenza is a major public health problem. Nosocomial influenza is particularly concerning as it may affect patients at high risk for complications. Unvaccinated health care workers (HCWs) are an important source of nosocomial influenza and therefore a priority target group for vaccination. Despite the fact that some European countries have high coverage rates such as UK (76.8% in season 2020/21), others continue to have low coverage rates for influenza vaccines. This study aims to estimate vaccination coverage in HCWs in Cyprus, an island country located in the Eastern Mediterranean region and describe their attitudes towards influenza vaccination. Methods: This is a questionnaire based, nation-wide study assessing flu vaccination coverage in 2019–2020 and attitudes related to vaccination acceptance, of 962 HCWs in both public and private health care facilities. Multivariable logistic regression was used to investigate factors associated with flu vaccination status. Results: Flu vaccination coverage was estimated as 31.8%. The top two reasons for getting vaccinated were to protect their family (81.4%) and themselves (77.4%). The top two reasons for not getting immunised, besides “no particular reason” (25.7%), included disbelief for vaccine effectiveness (21.5%) and safety (29.3%). The regression model showed that doctors compared to nurses had 10 times the odds of being vaccinated. Other factors positively associated with flu vaccination were encouragement by the supervisor, having sufficient knowledge on flu and flu vaccination and easy access to vaccination. A percentage of 54.8% of participants stated that COVID-19 pandemic strongly or somewhat influenced their decision to get vaccinated. Conclusion: Flu vaccination coverage in HCWs in Cyprus is rather low, similar to some other European countries. Barriers and facilitators in this study can be considered in strategies to increase flu vaccination uptake. Such questionnaire-based surveys should be repeated in order to evaluate effectiveness of targeted vaccination campaigns.
KW - Health care workers
KW - influenza vaccine coverage,
KW - attitudes
U2 - 10.1016/j.vaccine.2022.02.020
DO - 10.1016/j.vaccine.2022.02.020
M3 - Article
SN - 0264-410X
VL - 40
SP - 1775
EP - 1782
JO - Vaccine
JF - Vaccine
IS - 12
ER -