Vaccine hesitancy among hospital staff physicians: A cross-sectional survey in France in 2019.
Attitudes
Confidence
Healthcare Workers
Practices
Vaccine Hesitancy
Journal
Vaccine
ISSN: 1873-2518
Titre abrégé: Vaccine
Pays: Netherlands
ID NLM: 8406899
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
22 07 2021
22 07 2021
Historique:
received:
10
09
2020
revised:
24
05
2021
accepted:
19
06
2021
pubmed:
3
7
2021
medline:
7
8
2021
entrez:
2
7
2021
Statut:
ppublish
Résumé
Healthcare professionals, because they recommend vaccines to their patients, answer their questions, and vaccinate them, are the cornerstone of vaccination in France. They can nonetheless be affected by vaccine hesitancy (VH). We sought to study the opinions, practices, and perceptions of French hospital staff physicians (HSPs) toward vaccination and the prevalence and correlates of VH among them. We conducted a cross-sectional survey in 14 public hospitals in France from September 2018 to October 2019. HSPs completed a standardized questionnaire -most of the time face-to-face - about their vaccine-related attitudes and practices. Data were weighted for age and sex. An agglomerative hierarchical cluster analysis of the HSPs' perceptions and opinions toward vaccination allowed us to identify vaccine-hesitant HSPs, and multiple Poisson regression with robust standard errors let us study the factors associated with VH. The study included 1,795 HSPs (participation rate: 86%). Almost all (93.7%) were strongly favorable to vaccination, even though 42.2% (95CI = 39.8-44.6) showed moderate VH. VH prevalence was lowest among infectious disease specialists (12.3%; 95CI = 6.7-21.3) and pediatricians (27.7%; 95CI = 21.4-35.2). Hesitant HSPs were less trustful of vaccination information sources and doubted the safety of vaccines more often than HSPs with almost no VH. Compared with non-hesitant HSPs, those with higher VH had less often taken a medical course about vaccination and were less likely to be vaccinated against seasonal influenza, to recommend vaccines to their patients and to try to convince vaccine-hesitant patients to be vaccinated. Strong favorability to vaccination does not prevent VH, which was observed in most specialties. Interventions are required to help hesitant HSPs to adopt more proactive vaccination practices.
Sections du résumé
BACKGROUND
Healthcare professionals, because they recommend vaccines to their patients, answer their questions, and vaccinate them, are the cornerstone of vaccination in France. They can nonetheless be affected by vaccine hesitancy (VH).
AIMS
We sought to study the opinions, practices, and perceptions of French hospital staff physicians (HSPs) toward vaccination and the prevalence and correlates of VH among them.
METHODS
We conducted a cross-sectional survey in 14 public hospitals in France from September 2018 to October 2019. HSPs completed a standardized questionnaire -most of the time face-to-face - about their vaccine-related attitudes and practices. Data were weighted for age and sex. An agglomerative hierarchical cluster analysis of the HSPs' perceptions and opinions toward vaccination allowed us to identify vaccine-hesitant HSPs, and multiple Poisson regression with robust standard errors let us study the factors associated with VH.
RESULTS
The study included 1,795 HSPs (participation rate: 86%). Almost all (93.7%) were strongly favorable to vaccination, even though 42.2% (95CI = 39.8-44.6) showed moderate VH. VH prevalence was lowest among infectious disease specialists (12.3%; 95CI = 6.7-21.3) and pediatricians (27.7%; 95CI = 21.4-35.2). Hesitant HSPs were less trustful of vaccination information sources and doubted the safety of vaccines more often than HSPs with almost no VH. Compared with non-hesitant HSPs, those with higher VH had less often taken a medical course about vaccination and were less likely to be vaccinated against seasonal influenza, to recommend vaccines to their patients and to try to convince vaccine-hesitant patients to be vaccinated.
CONCLUSIONS
Strong favorability to vaccination does not prevent VH, which was observed in most specialties. Interventions are required to help hesitant HSPs to adopt more proactive vaccination practices.
Identifiants
pubmed: 34210575
pii: S0264-410X(21)00803-3
doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2021.06.053
pii:
doi:
Substances chimiques
Influenza Vaccines
0
Types de publication
Journal Article
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Langues
eng
Sous-ensembles de citation
IM
Pagination
4481-4488Informations de copyright
Copyright © 2021. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts
Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.