The Attitudes of Healthcare Professionals in an Autonomous Community in Spain towards Paediatric Influenza Vaccination

Abstract

In the 2022-2023 influenza season, three autonomous communities anticipated the document approved by the Public Health Commission recommending influenza vaccination for all children aged 6 to 59 months. The primary objective of this study was to evaluate the attitude of healthcare professionals towards the first universal vaccination campaign in our region, as well as the acceptability of the vaccines used and their attitude towards pilot school vaccination. This was a cross-sectional, survey-based, descriptive study. All healthcare professionals involved in the campaign were invited to participate. Overall, 91.9% of surveyed professionals thought that influenza vaccination from 6 to 59 months was important or very important, and 89.8% had previous experience regarding the intramuscular vaccine. Healthcare professionals rated the intranasal vaccine significantly more positively, but there were no differences when asking about each vaccine without comparison. The inhaled vaccine was preferred by 97.5% for the following campaign. Pilot school vaccination had a 75% acceptance rate. The inhaled vaccine was preferred by most professionals, and pilot school vaccination was highly accepted and independently associated with the importance of vaccination as considered by physicians, being a medical doctor, and participation in the pilot programme.

Keywords: attitude of healthcare professionals; healthcare professional; influenza vaccines; inhaled vaccine; intramuscular vaccine.

Figure 1

The percentage of healthcare professionals who rated the intranasal vs. intramuscular vaccines used in the vaccination campaign in a comparative analysis according to a Likert scale, where 1 is the lowest possible score and 5 is the highest. (A) represents the scores given to “Ease/convenience of administration” (survey question 10, Supplementary File). For this analysis, scores of 1 or 2 on the Likert scale were translated as the very poor/poor, scores of 3 as neither poor nor good, and scores of 4 or 5 as good/very good rating (p < 0.001), and (B) represents the scores given to “General rating of professional’s experience with the vaccine” (survey question 11, Supplementary File). For this analysis, scores of 1 or 2 on the Likert scale were translated as the worst possible experience/poor experience, scores of 3 as neither poor nor good experience, and scores of 4 or 5 as good experience/best possible experience (p < 0.001).

Figure 2

Overall 5-point Likert scale score (blue) and comparing by professional category (doctors in dark orange vs. nurses in light orange). (A) Ease/convenience of intranasal vaccine administration (p = 0.013 in comparison by professional group). (B) General rating of professional’s experience with vaccine (p > 0.05 in comparison by professional group). (C) Ease/convenience of administration of intramuscular vaccines (p < 0.001 in comparison by professional group). (D) General rating of professional’s experience with vaccine (p = 0.001 in comparison by professional group).

Figure 3

Percentage of healthcare professionals assigning Likert scale scores to question of usefulness/feasibility of extending school influenza vaccination to all schools overall among healthcare professionals and comparatively by professional category (p < 0.001 in comparison by professional group).

Figure 4

Factors independently associated with a favourable opinion of extending the school vaccination programme for the next season. The x-axis represents the odds ratio of each covariate analysed in the multivariate analysis (y-axis) along with the 95% CI.