Recognition of the Seasonal Influenza Vaccine at the Adult Immunization by the Primary Care Health Staff and Specification of Their Approach in This Regard

Research has been planned to determine the knowledge, attitude and behavior of the Primary Care Physicians and the Primary Care Health Staff with regards to the seasonal influenza illness At the cross-sectional type research, it has been aimed to reach all Primary Care Physicians and the Primary Care Health Staff in Burdur and a questionnaire with the face-to-face interview method has been applied for 139 health staff between the dates 1-30 September 2013. Chi-square analysis has been used to investigate the values specified with binary names and count and logistic regression analysis has been used to investigate the impact of multiple values on the knowledge score. p<0,05 has been taken for statistical significance. Approximately half of the participants are physicians, their 61,4% are female and the age average is 38,4+6,8 years, their tenure average is 181,1±76,1 months. 65% of the participants indicated that they have seasonal influenza vaccine minimum once and 22,1% indicated that they have the vaccine every year. The most frequent reasons for those who do not have had any vaccines (49 people) are fear of the side effect profile of the vaccine (28,6%), distrust of its protectiveness (26,5%) and ruling out influenza as a dangerous illness (26,5%). Approximately 90% of the participants recommend the seasonal influenza vaccine, however, the recommendation rate for everybody over 65 is 65,7%. The number of people who answered more than 10 of the 16 knowledge questions is 79 (56,4%). The factors impacting the knowledge state have been investigated and it has been determined that, compared to the health staff, the physicians answered more than 10 questions correctly at a rate for 2,89 (1,03-8,35) times. Although 97,9% of the participants know that the population over 65 is the risk group, only 65 per cent of them recommend the vaccine, which displays that there are still doubts about the effectiveness and side effects of the vaccine among the health staff. Studies to improve the attitudes on the application of the influenza vaccine of all primary care health staff and particularly, especially studies to improve the knowledge of the assistant health staff should be carried out.