Abstract
BackgroundThe coverage for influenza vaccination among healthcare workers (HCWs) is inadequate in many countries despite strong recommendations; is there evidence that influenza vaccination is effective in preventing absenteeism? Aim of the study is to evaluate the influenza vaccination coverage and its effects on absences from work among HCWs of an Italian academic healthcare trust during the 2017–2018 influenza season.MethodsWe performed a retrospective study to identify predictive characteristics for vaccination, and a retrospective cohort study to establish the effect of vaccination on absences among the vaccinated and non-vaccinated cohorts between December 2017 and May 2018. Overall absence rates over the whole observation period and sub-rates over 14-days intervals were calculated; then comparison between the two groups were conducted applying Chi-square test.ResultsInfluenza vaccination coverage among 4419 HCWs was 14.5%. Age, university degree, medical care area and physician profile were positively associated with vaccine uptake. Globally during influenza season non-vaccinated HCWs lost 2.47/100 person-days of work compared to 1.92/100 person-days of work among vaccinated HCWs (p < 0.001); significant differences in absences rates resulted when focusing on the influenza epidemic peak.ConclusionsFactors predicting influenza uptake among HCWs were male sex, working within medical care area and being a physician. Absenteeism among HCWs resulted to be negatively correlated with vaccination against influenza. These findings add evidence to the urgent need to implement better influenza vaccination strategies towards HCWs to tackle vaccine hesitancy among professionals.
Highlights
The coverage for influenza vaccination among healthcare workers (HCWs) is inadequate in many countries despite strong recommendations; is there evidence that influenza vaccination is effective in preventing absenteeism? Aim of the study is to evaluate the influenza vaccination coverage and its effects on absences from work among HCWs of an Italian academic healthcare trust during the 2017–2018 influenza season
Influenza vaccination coverage According to administrative records, during the 2017 influenza vaccination campaign a total of 4419 HCWs were employed at the Udine Healthcare and University Integrated Trust
Results seem to be still uncertain concerning intensive care area as Esposito et al [17] found HCWs working in emergency units to be more likely to undergo influenza vaccination when compared to HCWs working in medical department, but different aggregation of workers were made in the two studies making result not comparable
Summary
The coverage for influenza vaccination among healthcare workers (HCWs) is inadequate in many countries despite strong recommendations; is there evidence that influenza vaccination is effective in preventing absenteeism? Aim of the study is to evaluate the influenza vaccination coverage and its effects on absences from work among HCWs of an Italian academic healthcare trust during the 2017–2018 influenza season. An HCW may spread the virus to patients and colleagues resulting in an hospital outbreak, but to the community as well, increasing hospitalizations or even deaths, and contributing to increase costs for the healthcare system [4, 5, 9]. For these reasons WHO, CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and ECDC (European Centre For Disease Control and Prevention) strongly recommend annual vaccination against influenza for all HCWs [1, 10, 11]. Despite strong recommendations to raise coverage among HCWs [1], compliance with influenza vaccination is still inadequate in many European countries [13] including Italy [13,14,15,16,17]
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