Nurses Knowledge, attitude and behaviour or vaccination

Background

During this unprecedented year in relation to the Corona-virus pandemic, our attention has focused on viral and other infectious diseases, and especially on vaccination. On top of this, there is also concern about nurses’ personal uptake of the influenza vaccination ‘with opinions being expressed without having heard the nurse’s voice‘ .

ESNO is a strong advocate and promoter of nursing knowledge and competencies related to infectious disease transmission and vaccination and is interested if this contributes to nurse’s decision on vaccination uptake.

Conclusions

The ESNO Survey to Nurses in Europe on Vaccination Uptake, that was administered by 238 respondents in November 2020, shows that 53.4% got vaccinated for influenza in 2018 and 55.2% in 2019. The majority of them were (very) likely to get vaccinated for influenza in 2020 (67.8%) and COVID-19 when available (60.6%).

The majority of them (strongly) agrees to mandate influenza vaccination for physicians (56.4%), nurses (58.4%), and other healthcare workers (55.9%). A bigger majority agrees to mandate influenza vaccination for older people (67.4%), chronically ill people (69.4%), and immunosuppressed patients (70.6%).

Of respondents on the ESNO Survey to Nurses in Europe on Vaccination Uptake, administered in November 2020, 39.6% (strongly) agrees to make vaccination for COVID-19 mandatory, 34.9% (strongly) disagrees and 25.5% neither agrees nor disagrees.

Furthermore, the majority of respondents assessed their knowledge about pathogens, vaccines, and immune system on a medium level (61.7%; 63.7%; 56.7% resp.).

A higher level of self-assessed knowledge about vaccines and the immune system is statistically significant associated with the likelihood to get vaccinated for COVID-19, but not for influenza.

See full report: https://fonse.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/ESNO_Vaccination_Survey_2020-Final-version_12-May_2020.pdf