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Knowledge, risk perception and attitudes towards vaccination among Austrian health care workers: A cross-sectional study

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  • Knowledge, risk perception and attitudes towards vaccination among Austrian health care workers: A cross-sectional study

    Hum Vaccin Immunother. 2016 Mar 30:0. [Epub ahead of print]
    Knowledge, risk perception and attitudes towards vaccination among Austrian health care workers: A cross-sectional study.

    Harrison N1, Brand A2, Forstner C1,3, Tobudic S1, Burgmann K2, Burgmann H1.
    Author information

    Abstract

    The aim of this study was to evaluate the vaccination coverage of Austrian health care workers (HCWs), their knowledge concerning the current guideline on vaccination for HCWs and their attitudes towards vaccination. A cross-sectional survey was performed by distributing 200 questionnaires among the nursing staff of several medical wards and intensive care units of the Vienna General Hospital. 116 questionnaires were returned for analysis with 77.4% female and 22.6% male participants. While certain vaccines like hepatitis B, tetanus and polio had high vaccination rates of up to 94% and good knowledge concerning the vaccination status, other vaccines like measles (59.8%), mumps (60.7%), rubella (70.5%), influenza (42.1%) or pertussis (58.2%) showed much lower coverage. The main sources of information were nursing school (59.1%), secondary school (46.1%), parents (45.2%) and media in general (45.2%). Only 21.9% of HCWs claimed to know the current guideline on vaccination. Those who knew the guideline were significantly more likely to consider certain vaccines like measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, polio and varicella as recommended (p ≤ 0.04). The most important reasons for receiving vaccination were self-protection (87.5%), prevention of epidemics (54.5%), protection of others (55.4%) and of patients (42.9%). Fear of side effects (67.2%), negative experiences with vaccines (22.4%), the additional doctor's appointment (20.7%) and considering vaccines as an invention by the pharmaceutical industry (19%) were hindering factors for vaccination of HCWs. Considering the essential role of HCWs in preventing diseases, this study noted a remarkable lack of information on vaccination in this profession.


    KEYWORDS:

    attitudes; guideline; health care workers; vaccination; vaccination coverage

    PMID: 27029897 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
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