A new study describes the factors that are most commonly associated with health care workers who get the influenza vaccine. Researchers suggest that by targeting certain predictors, vaccination will become more likely among health care workers.
Researchers reviewed 13 studies that recorded data from almost 85,000 health care workers. The researchers studied a variety of factors that influenced health care workers’ likelihood of receiving the flu vaccine. According to a study, published in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine, the strongest predictors of vaccination are:
1.Believing that flu prevention is important
2.Having a family that is usually vaccinated
3.Being willing to prevent influenza transmission
4.Believing that influenza is highly contagious
5.Knowing that the vaccine is effective
“Our findings are consistent with the results of previous reviews, which also suggested that raising awareness about vaccine effectiveness and the risks of influenza makes vaccination more likely to be accepted,” the authors wrote.
Men were more likely to receive the vaccine than women, and nurses were less likely than doctors to get the shot. Factors, like the health care worker’s amount of direct patient contact or willingness to protect at risk patients from complications from the flu, had little impact on whether the worker received the vaccination.
