Immunization status of general hospital's staff against Influenza, Shiraz, Southern of Iran

Increasing rate of reference of Influenza patients to hospitals besides recent H1N1 pandemic experiences and also threats of incoming Avian flu denote to the importance and necessity of Hospital's staff annual vaccination against influenza. In this cross sectional and questionnaire based study 276 of shiraz general hospital's personnel were selected by convenient method. The collected data were entered and processed in SPSS/WIN 11.5. Responding rate was 75%. Among participants, 159 (77%) were nurse and 24 (12%) were medical doctors.85 % were female and Mean age of responders was 36.13±7.83 years. Mean score of knowledge was 16/54±2/75; showed 80% of desired level.117 (57%) said that their exposure possibility to flu patients in hospitals is moderate to high degree.135 (65%) did not have history of influenza vaccination in last year and the most common causes of Influenza vaccination declination by whom were belief of not getting influenza from others, distrust about vaccine efficacy and concern about adverse reactions of influenza vaccine. In 62(30%) who received influenza vaccination in last year, the most common causes of Flu vaccination were protection of patients of getting influenza, reducing the chance of being off work due to protracting influenza and protection of families of getting influenza. Increasing work load of hospitals by referred flu patients besides diversity and unpredicted nature of influenza pandemics and confirmed role of non- flu vaccinated hospitals’ staff in developing influenza outbreaks at hospitals, shows the importance of improving Influenza vaccination uptake rate among hospitals’ staff based on the global and national protocols.