Perception of seasonal influenza vaccination by Health Care Workers at a tertiary care hospital in Saudi Arabia

Background:

Our institution is a large and modern medical center with 1200 beds (750 operational beds), located in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. 7500 employees are already joined the facility. Patients and employee safety one of the top priority for the institution. Infection Control department decided to conduct a study on compliance of hospital staff with seasonal influenza vaccination aiming identifying the level of compliance and reason behind low level of vaccination.

Objective:

Ø  to study the compliance of HCWs with influenza vaccination during the influenza season 2008-2009

Ø  to study the HCWs  behaviour related to influenza vaccination of their families

Ø  to study the HCWs  behaviour related to influenza vaccination of their patients

Methods:

A special self administered questionnaire was designed by the study team, which was distributed randomly to 400 HCWs physicians, nurses, and other staff from all departments in the hospital.

Data entry and analysis was done in SPSS and included calculation of proportions, Chi square test, p value(5% level of significance, CI 95)

Results:

Response rate 90.1% , compliance rate with seasonal influenza vaccination was 56.5%, significantly varying between job categories (p_000).Physicians had the lowest compliance rate (31.9%). Most common reasons for not getting influenza vaccination were: being busy 51.4%,not satisfied with outcome 31%,other reasons13.4%,false perception of not availability of vaccine 4.2%.

Around 15% of HCWs have given  influenza vaccine to family members There was not statistically significant difference between physicians, nurses and other staff in this regard (p_0.72). The main reasons for not giving influenza vaccine to family members were: being busy 29.2%, not satisfied with outcome 23%, other reasons 30.9%(family abroad, single contract),false perception of lack of availability of vaccine 16.8%. According to this study only 34.3% of HCWs had referred their patients for influenza vaccination. More than half percent among physicians referred their patient for vaccination, compared to 31.2 % only from among nurses .The main reasons for not referring patients for influenza vaccination were: vaccination not indicated 68.9%, being busy11.4%, not satisfied with outcome 8.3%, false perception that vaccine was not available 4.5%, Other reasons 6.8% .

Conclusions:

This study indicated low compliance rate for influenza vaccination mainly among physicians. There are still misconception regarding indications and contra indications of vaccination. The main reason for not getting vaccinated was ‘being busy’. The percent of patients who were referred for vaccination was low. There was  lack of information regarding availability of influenza vaccine in KFMC