Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Prevalence, knowledge, attitude, and practices associated with influenza vaccination among healthcare workers in primary care centers in Jazan, Saudi Arabia: A cross-sectional study

Gasem Maoudhah Mojamamy¹, Osama B Albasheer², Mohammed Salih Mahfouz²

¹Family Medicine Department, Armed Forces Hospital; ²Department of Family and Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Jazan University, Jazan, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

For correspondence:- Mohammed Mahfouz Email: mm.mahfouz@gmail.com

Accepted: 17 May 2018 Published: 30 June 2018

Citation: Mojamamy GM, Albasheer OB, Mahfouz MS. Prevalence, knowledge, attitude, and practices associated with influenza vaccination among healthcare workers in primary care centers in Jazan, Saudi Arabia: A cross-sectional study. Trop J Pharm Res 2018; 17(6):1201-1207 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v17i6.29

© 2018 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To assess the prevalence, knowledge, attitude and practices of health care workers (HCWs) in Jazan Province regarding the annual influenza vaccination program.

Methods: A cross-sectional, self-administered questionnaire-based study was conducted among HCWs (n = 368) at the primary 18 health care centers in Jazan, Saudi Arabia during the period January – April, 2016.

Results: The overall vaccination coverage was 87.0 % in the previous year and 79.9 % in the last 5 years. In all, 97 % of males and 59.5 % of females considered influenza as a serious disease (p = 0.005). Regarding prevention of influenza infection, 91.2 % of respondents believed that HCWs were at risk of influenza infection, while 62.5 % considered vaccination as the best preventive measure (p = 0.003). The most common reasons for receiving vaccine were “to protect oneself or one’s family” (99.4 %), while the most common reason for not taking the vaccine was “fear of side effects” (49 %).

Conclusion: HCWs exhibit positive attitudes toward influenza vaccine, and notwithstanding the high vaccine coverage in Jazan Province. However, influenza vaccine campaigns should include information to enhance the awareness of HCWs about the risk of exposure to influenza, and information about the adverse reactions to influenza vaccine.

Keywords: Healthcare workers, Influenza vaccine, Risk of exposure, Adverse reactions.