Personal attitudes and misconceptions, not official recommendations guide occupational physicians’ vaccination decisions

Knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and practices of construction workers towards tetanus vaccine in Northern Italy

“…Since an inadequate immunization status in our study was associated with older age groups, where previous contacts with General Practitioner or Occupational Physicians is highly probable, a more proactive role for these health professionals may be advocated37, 38 ) , and every contact with a physician used to check vaccination status15 ) . Persons receiving a professional advice not only feel better informed about the benefits but also about the risks of vaccination in general, vaccination consultation eventually resulting to be a strong enabling factor for higher vaccine uptake15, 29, 34 ) .…”

“…Unfortunately, several studies suggest that the knowledge of General Practitioner and Occupational Physicians about vaccines and the respective vaccine-preventable disease are not regularly based upon scientific evidence, quite frequently residing on personal disbeliefs and misconceptions38 ) . In effect, subjects from our study having received the last shot by the General Practitioner or Occupational Physicians had also a similarly high risk for vaccine booster with T rather than the recommended Td vaccine preparation (Table 3), the latter being more frequently used by Local Public Health Services, suggesting that modern vaccine policies were irregularly received by private practitioners39 ) .…”

Factors affecting uptake of recommended immunizations among health care workers in South Australia

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6][7] Despite this, HCW uptake of recommended vaccines is low 2,[8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] , particularly for seasonal influenza and pertussis. 13,[16][17][18][19] In Australia, both pertussis and seasonal influenza vaccines are recommended for all HCWs 17 however providing free influenza vaccine is a policy decision for each hospital or state and is not uniform across Australia.…”

Long-term persistency of hepatitis B immunity: an observational cross-sectional study on medical students and resident doctors

“…Occupational Physicians should consider with particular attention the evaluation of the persistence of anti-HBV specific antibodies in medical students (in most cases vaccinated at birth age) and HCWs specifically at the time of the first employment in order to identify subjects with non-protective anti-HBs titer [32, 33]. Occupational Physicians’ contribution to reduce vaccine delays or refusals and vaccine hesitancy that are also affecting HCWs is crucial [34]. A recent study of Riccò and colleagues [35] draw attention to the knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and practices of Occupational Physicians towards vaccination in HCWs showing that severity perception of the disease and misconceptions about vaccines still influence the immunization coverage.…”