• Online Features  This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Reply to article  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Citing articles on Web of Science (12)  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal  Topic Collections  • Viral Infections  • Occupational and Environmental Medicine  • Pediatrics  • Pediatrics, Other  • Public Health  • Immunization  • Drug Therapy  • Adverse Effects  • Infectious Diseases  • Alert me on articles by topic  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Lauren E. Douville, BS; Angela Myers, MD, MPH; Mary Anne Jackson, MD; John D. Lantos, MD

Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2010;164(1):33-37.

Objective  To determine the attitudes, beliefs, and knowledge of children's hospital health care workers toward mandatory influenza vaccination.

Design  Self-administered, Web-based questionnaire.

Setting  A large, tertiary children's hospital.

Participants  A random sample of 585 health care workers, including physicians, nurses, and all other hospital employees.

Outcome Measure  Attitudes of health care workers toward mandatory policies for annual influenza vaccination of health care workers as related to their opinions on safety, effectiveness, and knowledge about influenza and influenza vaccination.

Results  Many employees (70%) thought influenza vaccination should be mandatory for health care workers who did not have a medical contraindication. Nearly everyone, 363 of 391 (94%), who favored mandatory immunization had been immunized themselves. Of those who opposed mandatory immunization, 45 of 81 (55.6%) had been immunized (P < .001). Individuals who supported mandatory policies were more likely to believe that the vaccine is safe for both children and adults. There was no significant difference between the percentages of promandate and antimandate employees who believed influenza was dangerous for the patients where they work (66.5% and 62%, respectively, P = .07). Only 29% of antimandate employees believed they were at high risk of contracting influenza, compared with 51% of promandate employees (P < .001).

Conclusions  Approval of mandatory influenza vaccine policies was high; however, attitudes about the dangers of influenza for patients were not associated with acceptance of mandatory vaccination policies for health care workers. Educational efforts targeting health care workers' fears and misconceptions about influenza vaccines might help to decrease the reservoir of unimmunized health care workers.

Author Affiliations: Center for Practical Bioethics (Ms Douville and Dr Lantos), and Section of Infectious Disease and Children's Mercy Bioethics Center (Drs Myers, Jackson, and Lantos), Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinics, and University of Missouri at Kansas City School of Medicine, Kansas City; and Section of Neonatology, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois (Dr Lantos).

CiteULike    Connotea    Delicious    Digg    Facebook    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?

THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES

Recommendation for Mandatory Influenza Immunization of All Health Care Personnel
Bernstein et al.
Pediatrics 2010;126:809-815.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT