Home care nurses’ knowledge, attitudes, and practices towards influenza vaccination

Abstract

Title: Home care nurses’ knowledge, attitudes, and practices towards influenza vaccination. Background: Infectious diseases, including influenza, are creating a significant burden of disease on both patients and the healthcare system. Since nurses are key vectors in the spread of influenza, vaccination in nurses is an effective way of prevention. Previous research on this subject has focused on different settings, little is known about the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of home care nurses. Aim: To explore the knowledge, attitudes, and practices towards influenza vaccination. Method: A quantitative, descriptive study using an online, cross-sectional survey was conducted among Dutch home care nurses between March - April 2020. A translation of the King’s Nurses Influenza Vaccination Questionnaire was used to question; knowledge about influenza and the influenza vaccination, perception of the risk, health beliefs, practices regarding influenza vaccination and, reasons to get or not get influenza vaccination. SPSS Statistics version 25 was used to conduct data analysis using descriptive statistics, chi-square test and one-way ANOVA. Results: The vast majority of the 449 respondents was not vaccinated for seasonal influenza over the last 12 months (n=358, 79,7%) or the last 5 years (n=318, 70,8%). A significant difference was found between the vaccinated and unvaccinated groups in years of work experience, age, knowledge, perceptions, intention to get vaccinated next year and recommendation of vaccination to clients. Conclusion: The vaccination rate among home care nurses is low, representing a quite negative attitude towards influenza vaccination. This attitude is related to their age, work experience, knowledge level, perception of risk of influenza and intention to recommendation of vaccination to clients in the future. Recommendations: By implicating these findings in education programs and motivational campaigns efforts should be made to improve the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of nurses.