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

INTRODUCTION: Influenza is one of the main public health problems and health care personnels (HCPs) are one of the at-risk groups for this infection. The goal of the current study was to identify the beliefs and attitudes of the Iranian HCPs about influenza and the influenza vaccine. METHODS: This cross-sectional study was performed in a general hospital in Tehran, Iran from January to June 2016. A total of 418 questionnaires were distributed among the HCPs. The Chi(2) test, linear regression and one-way ANOVA were used for data analysis, α: 0.05 was considered as a statistically significant level. All analyses were performed using the SPSS19 software. RESULTS: The influenza vaccination coverage was 57.7%; the highest vaccine rate belongs 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.