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Knowledge, Attitudes, Perceptions and Vaccination Acceptance/Hesitancy among the Community Pharmacists of Palermo’s Province, Italy: From Influenza to COVID-19

In Italy, following the start of the SARS-CoV-2 vaccination campaign, community pharmacies (CPs) were recruited on a voluntary basis in order to administer COVID-19 vaccines as part of their activities. The aim of the present study was to investigate the knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding...

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Autores principales: Costantino, Claudio, Graziano, Giorgio, Bonaccorso, Nicole, Conforto, Arianna, Cimino, Livia, Sciortino, Martina, Scarpitta, Francesco, Giuffrè, Chiara, Mannino, Salvatore, Bilardo, Mario, Ledda, Caterina, Vitale, Francesco, Restivo, Vincenzo, Mazzucco, Walter
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8949300/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35335106
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/vaccines10030475
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author Costantino, Claudio
Graziano, Giorgio
Bonaccorso, Nicole
Conforto, Arianna
Cimino, Livia
Sciortino, Martina
Scarpitta, Francesco
Giuffrè, Chiara
Mannino, Salvatore
Bilardo, Mario
Ledda, Caterina
Vitale, Francesco
Restivo, Vincenzo
Mazzucco, Walter
author_facet Costantino, Claudio
Graziano, Giorgio
Bonaccorso, Nicole
Conforto, Arianna
Cimino, Livia
Sciortino, Martina
Scarpitta, Francesco
Giuffrè, Chiara
Mannino, Salvatore
Bilardo, Mario
Ledda, Caterina
Vitale, Francesco
Restivo, Vincenzo
Mazzucco, Walter
author_sort Costantino, Claudio
collection PubMed
description In Italy, following the start of the SARS-CoV-2 vaccination campaign, community pharmacies (CPs) were recruited on a voluntary basis in order to administer COVID-19 vaccines as part of their activities. The aim of the present study was to investigate the knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding SARS-CoV-2 infection prevention, and vaccine acceptance/hesitancy towards COVID-19 and influenza vaccinations among the community pharmacists operating in the Palermo Province. A cross-sectional study was conducted, with two different questionnaires administered before and after the conduction of the vaccination campaign against SARS-CoV-2 at the COVID-19 vaccination center of the Palermo University Hospital (PUH). The baseline survey showed that 64% of community pharmacists (CPs) declared that they planned to vaccinate against SARS-CoV-2, and 58% were vaccinated against influenza during the 2020/2021 season. Factors significantly associated with willingness to receive the COVID-19 vaccination were confidence in vaccines (adjOR 1.76; CI 1.11–2.80), fear of contracting SARS-CoV-2 infection (adjOR 1.50; CI 1.06–2.11), considering COVID-19 vaccination to be the best strategy to counteract SARS-CoV-2 (adjOR 1.79; CI 1.39–2.29), and adherence to influenza vaccination during the 2020/2021 season (adjOR 3.25; CI 2.23–4.25). The adherence among CPs of the Palermo Province to COVID-19 vaccination was 96.5%. From the post-vaccination survey, the main reasons for changing opinions on vaccination adherence were the introduction of mandatory vaccinations, fear of contracting COVID-19, and limitations on work activities in the case of vaccine refusal. The achievement of very high COVID-19 vaccination coverage rates among healthcare professionals (HCPs) in the present study was mainly due to the mandatory vaccination policies; nevertheless, a willingness for COVID-19 vaccination was relatively high among pharmacists before the beginning of the vaccination campaign. HCPs and CPs should receive training on vaccination, which is recommended in the national immunization plan and is also suggested by the respondents in our study, in order to routinely re-evaluate their own vaccination profiles, as well as those of their patients.
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spelling pubmed-89493002022-03-26 Knowledge, Attitudes, Perceptions and Vaccination Acceptance/Hesitancy among the Community Pharmacists of Palermo’s Province, Italy: From Influenza to COVID-19 Costantino, Claudio Graziano, Giorgio Bonaccorso, Nicole Conforto, Arianna Cimino, Livia Sciortino, Martina Scarpitta, Francesco Giuffrè, Chiara Mannino, Salvatore Bilardo, Mario Ledda, Caterina Vitale, Francesco Restivo, Vincenzo Mazzucco, Walter Vaccines (Basel) Article In Italy, following the start of the SARS-CoV-2 vaccination campaign, community pharmacies (CPs) were recruited on a voluntary basis in order to administer COVID-19 vaccines as part of their activities. The aim of the present study was to investigate the knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding SARS-CoV-2 infection prevention, and vaccine acceptance/hesitancy towards COVID-19 and influenza vaccinations among the community pharmacists operating in the Palermo Province. A cross-sectional study was conducted, with two different questionnaires administered before and after the conduction of the vaccination campaign against SARS-CoV-2 at the COVID-19 vaccination center of the Palermo University Hospital (PUH). The baseline survey showed that 64% of community pharmacists (CPs) declared that they planned to vaccinate against SARS-CoV-2, and 58% were vaccinated against influenza during the 2020/2021 season. Factors significantly associated with willingness to receive the COVID-19 vaccination were confidence in vaccines (adjOR 1.76; CI 1.11–2.80), fear of contracting SARS-CoV-2 infection (adjOR 1.50; CI 1.06–2.11), considering COVID-19 vaccination to be the best strategy to counteract SARS-CoV-2 (adjOR 1.79; CI 1.39–2.29), and adherence to influenza vaccination during the 2020/2021 season (adjOR 3.25; CI 2.23–4.25). The adherence among CPs of the Palermo Province to COVID-19 vaccination was 96.5%. From the post-vaccination survey, the main reasons for changing opinions on vaccination adherence were the introduction of mandatory vaccinations, fear of contracting COVID-19, and limitations on work activities in the case of vaccine refusal. The achievement of very high COVID-19 vaccination coverage rates among healthcare professionals (HCPs) in the present study was mainly due to the mandatory vaccination policies; nevertheless, a willingness for COVID-19 vaccination was relatively high among pharmacists before the beginning of the vaccination campaign. HCPs and CPs should receive training on vaccination, which is recommended in the national immunization plan and is also suggested by the respondents in our study, in order to routinely re-evaluate their own vaccination profiles, as well as those of their patients. MDPI 2022-03-18 /pmc/articles/PMC8949300/ /pubmed/35335106 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/vaccines10030475 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Costantino, Claudio
Graziano, Giorgio
Bonaccorso, Nicole
Conforto, Arianna
Cimino, Livia
Sciortino, Martina
Scarpitta, Francesco
Giuffrè, Chiara
Mannino, Salvatore
Bilardo, Mario
Ledda, Caterina
Vitale, Francesco
Restivo, Vincenzo
Mazzucco, Walter
Knowledge, Attitudes, Perceptions and Vaccination Acceptance/Hesitancy among the Community Pharmacists of Palermo’s Province, Italy: From Influenza to COVID-19
title Knowledge, Attitudes, Perceptions and Vaccination Acceptance/Hesitancy among the Community Pharmacists of Palermo’s Province, Italy: From Influenza to COVID-19
title_full Knowledge, Attitudes, Perceptions and Vaccination Acceptance/Hesitancy among the Community Pharmacists of Palermo’s Province, Italy: From Influenza to COVID-19
title_fullStr Knowledge, Attitudes, Perceptions and Vaccination Acceptance/Hesitancy among the Community Pharmacists of Palermo’s Province, Italy: From Influenza to COVID-19
title_full_unstemmed Knowledge, Attitudes, Perceptions and Vaccination Acceptance/Hesitancy among the Community Pharmacists of Palermo’s Province, Italy: From Influenza to COVID-19
title_short Knowledge, Attitudes, Perceptions and Vaccination Acceptance/Hesitancy among the Community Pharmacists of Palermo’s Province, Italy: From Influenza to COVID-19
title_sort knowledge, attitudes, perceptions and vaccination acceptance/hesitancy among the community pharmacists of palermo’s province, italy: from influenza to covid-19
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8949300/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35335106
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/vaccines10030475
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