Knowledge, attitudes, and practices for the use of seasonal influenza vaccination, healthcare workers, Costa Rica.

Zachary Madewell,Jorge Jara,Xiomara Badilla-Vargas,Rafael Chacón-Fuentes,Maria-Renee Ortiz,Catalina Ramirez,Juan-Pablo Alvis-Estrada

doi:10.3855/jidc.14381

Abstract

Introduction:Annual seasonal influenza vaccination in healthcare workers prevents nosocomial transmission to patients, coworkers, and visitors, and reduces absenteeism. This study aimed to describe knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) of seasonal influenza vaccine among public healthcare workers attending patients in Costa Rica.Methodology:We conducted a cross-sectional survey of healthcare personnel attending patients in public hospitals in 2017–2018. Frequency distributions of demographics, vaccination KAP, sources of information, clinical manifestations and reasons for non-vaccination were reported. Logistic regression was used to analyze associations between exposures of interest (demographics, sources of information, knowledge, attitudes towards vaccination) and self-reported influenza vaccination.Results:We surveyed 747 healthcare workers in 2017–2018. Of 706 participants who knew their vaccination status, 55.7% were vaccinated for seasonal influenza. Only 20.7% of participants knew the influenza vaccine was an inactivated virus, and 94.6% believed the vaccine causes flu-like symptoms. Factors associated with current influenza vaccination were vaccination in previous year (aOR: 8.13; 95% CI: 5.65–11.71) and believed influenza vaccination may be harmful (aOR: 0.62; 95% CI: 0.44–0.89). Reasons for non-vaccination included fear of adverse effects and access limitations.Conclusions:Suboptimal influenza vaccination among healthcare workers may be attributed to misconceptions about the vaccine and limited engagement strategies focusing on healthcare workers. Appropriate interventions are needed to increase healthcare worker vaccination rates and improve their knowledge and beneficence, which would improve patient safety in hospitals.

Highlights

Annual seasonal influenza vaccination in healthcare workers prevents nosocomial transmission to patients, coworkers, and visitors, and reduces absenteeism
Only 20.7% of healthcare workers knew the seasonal influenza vaccine offered by Costa Rican Social Security Fund (CCSS) was composed of inactivated viruses and 94.6% believed the vaccine causes flu-like symptoms
Compared to healthcare workers in 2017, a greater proportion of healthcare workers in 2018 knew that someone may become infected with influenza multiple times, knew influenza may be transmitted via contaminated hands, and indicated they would get vaccinated for influenza if offered the vaccine at work, whereas fewer believed vaccination may be harmful (p-values ≤ 0.03) (Supplementary Table 1)

Summary

Introduction

Annual seasonal influenza vaccination in healthcare workers prevents nosocomial transmission to patients, coworkers, and visitors, and reduces absenteeism. This study aimed to describe knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) of seasonal influenza vaccine among public healthcare workers attending patients in Costa Rica. Logistic regression was used to analyze associations between exposures of interest (demographics, sources of information, knowledge, attitudes towards vaccination) and self-reported influenza vaccination. 20.7% of participants knew the influenza vaccine was an inactivated virus, and 94.6% believed the vaccine causes flu-like symptoms. This study focuses on Costa Rica where influenza incidence, hospitalizations, and deaths were 412.6 (95% CI: 277.5–581.3), 38.5 (95% CI: 12.2–109.9), and 0.6 (95% CI: 0.4–1.0) per 100,000, respectively, in. In 2017, Costa Rica reported 1.5 million upper acute respiratory infections, 52,000 influenza-like illnesses, and 4,200 severe acute respiratory infections [5]

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion