Awareness and Practice of Vaccination of Chronic Hemodialysis Patients by Specialist Nephrology Practitioners in Nigeria: A Cross-Sectional Survey

Vaccination of hemodialysis (HD) patients reduces mortality and infection transmission in dialysis units, but its practice is perceivably poor in Nigeria with no study quantifying the level of awareness and practice to date. A questionnaire-based, cross-sectional study on nephrologists was designed. Average group performance scores were calculated for each professional group. Data were analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 20.0 software. The mean age of a total of 142 respondents was 40.7 ± 8.4 years. The average group performance scores for consultants, senior registrars, medical officers, dialysis nurses, and general nurses were 63.4, 63.4, 50.3, 43.4, and 43.4, respectively. Six facilities (11.1%) had active vaccination protocol against hepatitis B virus infection (HBV) alone. These comprised 4/8 (50%) private facilities and 2/46 (4.3%) public hospitals. One public tertiary hospital (2.2%) had an active vaccination protocol against Streptococcus pneumoniae. Awareness and practice of vaccination of HD patients by nephrologists is low. Practice of vaccination of HD patients is better in the private sector.