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Low influenza vaccine uptake by healthcare workers caring for the elderly in South African old age homes and primary healthcare facilities
BACKGROUND: The elderly bear the highest burden of South Africa’s estimated annual > 10 million influenza cases and > 11,000 influenza-related deaths. Unvaccinated healthcare workers (HCWs) are at high occupational risk of contracting influenza, and may transmit influenza to elderly patients i...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9834679/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36635715 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-14926-8 |
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author | Sibanda, Mncengeli Meyer, Johanna C. Godman, Brian Burnett, Rosemary J. |
author_facet | Sibanda, Mncengeli Meyer, Johanna C. Godman, Brian Burnett, Rosemary J. |
author_sort | Sibanda, Mncengeli |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: The elderly bear the highest burden of South Africa’s estimated annual > 10 million influenza cases and > 11,000 influenza-related deaths. Unvaccinated healthcare workers (HCWs) are at high occupational risk of contracting influenza, and may transmit influenza to elderly patients in their care. Thus, the South African National Department of Health recommends that HCWs receive annual influenza vaccination. This study aimed to determine influenza vaccination coverage among HCWs; identify reasons for their vaccination status; and investigate if HCWs recommend vaccination to their elderly patients. METHODS: A descriptive study was conducted in 18 community health centres and 44 private sector and non-governmental organisation managed old age homes across South Africa, using a self-administered structured questionnaire, which was distributed to 360 HCWs present on the day of data collection. Data were captured using Microsoft Excel® and imported to Epi Info™ 7 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, USA) for descriptive statistical analysis. Ethics approval (SMUREC/P/36/2018: PG) and permission to conduct the study at the facilities were obtained. All participants provided informed consent. RESULTS: The response rate was 76.7% (276/360). Most participants were female (90.9% [251/276]), nursing professionals (81.2% [224/276]) with a mean age of 41.1 ± 11.7 years. Although 62.7% of participants indicated having ever received at least one dose of the influenza vaccine, influenza vaccine uptake for 2017 and 2018 was 24.36% (41/276) and 33.3% (92/276) respectively. The main reasons given for never being vaccinated against influenza were related to the unavailability of the vaccine (70.9%) and vaccine hesitancy (27.2%). Most participants (67.8% [187/276]) recommended vaccines to elderly patients in their care. CONCLUSION: The main reasons behind low influenza vaccine uptake by HCWs in South Africa who care for the elderly were related to unavailability of the vaccine and vaccine hesitancy. Strategies to educate HCWs on the importance of influenza vaccination, while concurrently increasing sustained and easy access to the vaccine by HCWs are needed to preserve public health. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-022-14926-8. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9834679 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-98346792023-01-13 Low influenza vaccine uptake by healthcare workers caring for the elderly in South African old age homes and primary healthcare facilities Sibanda, Mncengeli Meyer, Johanna C. Godman, Brian Burnett, Rosemary J. BMC Public Health Research BACKGROUND: The elderly bear the highest burden of South Africa’s estimated annual > 10 million influenza cases and > 11,000 influenza-related deaths. Unvaccinated healthcare workers (HCWs) are at high occupational risk of contracting influenza, and may transmit influenza to elderly patients in their care. Thus, the South African National Department of Health recommends that HCWs receive annual influenza vaccination. This study aimed to determine influenza vaccination coverage among HCWs; identify reasons for their vaccination status; and investigate if HCWs recommend vaccination to their elderly patients. METHODS: A descriptive study was conducted in 18 community health centres and 44 private sector and non-governmental organisation managed old age homes across South Africa, using a self-administered structured questionnaire, which was distributed to 360 HCWs present on the day of data collection. Data were captured using Microsoft Excel® and imported to Epi Info™ 7 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, USA) for descriptive statistical analysis. Ethics approval (SMUREC/P/36/2018: PG) and permission to conduct the study at the facilities were obtained. All participants provided informed consent. RESULTS: The response rate was 76.7% (276/360). Most participants were female (90.9% [251/276]), nursing professionals (81.2% [224/276]) with a mean age of 41.1 ± 11.7 years. Although 62.7% of participants indicated having ever received at least one dose of the influenza vaccine, influenza vaccine uptake for 2017 and 2018 was 24.36% (41/276) and 33.3% (92/276) respectively. The main reasons given for never being vaccinated against influenza were related to the unavailability of the vaccine (70.9%) and vaccine hesitancy (27.2%). Most participants (67.8% [187/276]) recommended vaccines to elderly patients in their care. CONCLUSION: The main reasons behind low influenza vaccine uptake by HCWs in South Africa who care for the elderly were related to unavailability of the vaccine and vaccine hesitancy. Strategies to educate HCWs on the importance of influenza vaccination, while concurrently increasing sustained and easy access to the vaccine by HCWs are needed to preserve public health. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-022-14926-8. BioMed Central 2023-01-12 /pmc/articles/PMC9834679/ /pubmed/36635715 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-14926-8 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
spellingShingle | Research Sibanda, Mncengeli Meyer, Johanna C. Godman, Brian Burnett, Rosemary J. Low influenza vaccine uptake by healthcare workers caring for the elderly in South African old age homes and primary healthcare facilities |
title | Low influenza vaccine uptake by healthcare workers caring for the elderly in South African old age homes and primary healthcare facilities |
title_full | Low influenza vaccine uptake by healthcare workers caring for the elderly in South African old age homes and primary healthcare facilities |
title_fullStr | Low influenza vaccine uptake by healthcare workers caring for the elderly in South African old age homes and primary healthcare facilities |
title_full_unstemmed | Low influenza vaccine uptake by healthcare workers caring for the elderly in South African old age homes and primary healthcare facilities |
title_short | Low influenza vaccine uptake by healthcare workers caring for the elderly in South African old age homes and primary healthcare facilities |
title_sort | low influenza vaccine uptake by healthcare workers caring for the elderly in south african old age homes and primary healthcare facilities |
topic | Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9834679/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36635715 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-14926-8 |
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