Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2021 Mar 25;92(S2):e2021004.
doi: 10.23750/abm.v92iS2.11106.

Influenza vaccination and healthcare workers: barriers and predisposing factors

Assunta Guillari  1 , Francesco Polito  2 , Gianluca Pucciarelli  3 , Nicola Serra  4 , Gianpaolo Gargiulo  5 , Maria Rosaria Esposito  6 , Stefano Botti  7 , Teresa Rea  8 , Silvio Simeone  9
Affiliations
Review

Influenza vaccination and healthcare workers: barriers and predisposing factors

Assunta Guillari et al. Acta Biomed. .

Abstract

Background and aim of the work: Influenza is a disease that affects a large part of the world's population annually, with major health, social and economic impacts. Active immunisation practices have always been recommended to counter influenza, especially for people at risk. The recommendations of major health agencies strongly advise influenza vaccination for all healthcare workers, mostly for those in contact with at-risk or immunocompromised individuals. Yet, the influenza vaccination coverage among healthcare workers remains rather low worldwide. This review explore barriers and the facilitators of health care professional toward influenza's vaccination.

Methods: Narrative review consulting the databases: PubMed, CINAHL by combining keywords health care worker, flu, influenza, vaccination, barrier, resistence, hesitangy, between November 2019 and February 2020 Results. From the 1031 records initially, twenty-two primary studies were included in this narrative review. Our results show that the identified facilitators are: desire for self-protection, protection for loved ones and community. Instead, the barriers to vaccination identified are: fear of contracting influenza from the vaccination itself; not considering themselves at risk; to believing believe that their immune system is capable of managing a trivial disease; disease considered trivial, laziness; false beliefs.

Discussion and conclusion: Adherence rate on influenza vaccination among health professionals is quite low. The interventions that make it "complex and traceable" flu vaccination refusal increase adherence to this type of vaccination. The results show that current vaccination campaigns do not increase the rate of adherence by healthcare workers. Identifying the predisposing factors and barriers to such vaccination can help to create, develop and test targeted educational programmes.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Each author declares that he or she has no commercial associations (e.g. consultancies, stock ownership, equity interest, patent/licensing arrangement etc.) that might pose a conflict of interest in connection with the submitted article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Flow chart diagram
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Alfonsi V, Montano C, Rota MC, Declich S. HProImmune - Promotion of Immunization for Health Professionals in Europe. State of the art report. Overview of helath-care workers immunization status in Europe. 2012. Available at: http://hproimmune.eu/index.php/hproimmune/report . Accessed on August 20, 2020.
    1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD) Influenza Vaccination Information for Health Care Workers. 2016. Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/professionals/healthcareworkers.htm . Accessed on August 8, 2020.
    1. Rabensteiner A, Buja A, Regele D, Fischer M, Baldo V. Healthcare worker’s attitude to seasonal influenza vaccination in the South Tyrolean province of Italy: barriers and facilitators. Vaccine. 2018;36(4):535–44. - PubMed
    1. Hulo S, Nuvoli A, Sobaszek A, Salembier-Trichard A. Knowledge and attitudes towards influenza vaccination of health care workers in emergency services. Vaccine. 2017;35(2):205–7. - PubMed
    1. Barker WH. Excess pneumonia and influenza associated hospitalization during influenza epidemics in the United States, 1970-78. Am J Public Health. 1986;76(7):761–5. - PMC - PubMed