Assessment of the belief and attitudes of Iranian healthcare personnel’s toward the influenza infection and influenza vaccination

Abstract

Introduction: influenza is one of the main public health problems and Health Care Personnel's is one of the at-risk groups for this infection. So regarding this point, the goal of this research was to identify the beliefs and attitudes of the HCPs (Health Care Personnel) about influenza and the influenza vaccine.

Methods: This cross-sectional study was planned in a general hospital in Tehran; Iran from January to June 2016.A total of 418 questionnaires was distributed among the HCPs. The entire data set was analyzed using the SPSS. We used the Chi2 test, linear regression and one-way ANOVA for data analysis. P-values less than 0.05 were considered as statistically significant.

Results: The influenza vaccination coverage was 57.7%; the highest vaccine rate belonged to the allied health professionals (68.2%). Two main causes for avoiding the influenza vaccination were; the “fear of vaccine adverse effects” and the “uncertainty about the vaccine effectiveness”. The linear regression analysis identified that the physicians had the highest belief score, followed by the nurses and the allied health professionals (p <0.001).

 Conclusions: Educational planning on influenza and influenza vaccination is necessary to improve the vaccination coverage and to reduce the influenza mortality and morbidity in susceptible patients