WASHINGTON — In a recent survey of Canadian hospital workers, most said they would be willing to be immunized against pertussis for free, but only a third said they would do so if the vaccine cost over $30.
Moreover, despite a high level of knowledge about pertussis among respondents, just 45% believed that the vaccine was safe and only 40% believed that it was effective.
Dr. Karina A. Top, who was a pediatric resident at Dalhousie University in Halifax, N.S., at the time of the study, presented data from 529 pediatric hospital workers at the facility who responded to a short survey about pertussis. The survey objectives were to assess knowledge and attitudes of the staff regarding pertussis and the pertussis vaccine (Tdap), and to gauge the acceptability of vaccination, she said in a poster at the jointly held annual Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy and the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.
The 529 respondents represented 17% of the total 3,051 employees at IWK Health Centre, Halifax (including employees with and without direct patient interaction), said Dr. Top, now a pediatric infectious disease fellow at Columbia University in New York. Only two-thirds of the respondents were able to answer at least 60% of questions about pertussis correctly. Overall, 78% indicated on the survey that they would get immunized if the vaccine were free. If the vaccine were offered at a cost of $40 Canadian (about $32 US), only 30% of the respondents said they would be willing to get vaccinated. Respondents who had not received a flu vaccine were less likely to consider pertussis immunization.
Ultimately, only 61 of the 529 respondents received the vaccine, Dr. Top said in an interview. The results point to a possible need for public funding to ensure that employees of health care facilities are properly vaccinated, Dr. Top said. “It's a matter of cost and convenience.”
Study coauthor Dr. Scott Halperin, director of the Canadian Centre for Vaccinology, Halifax, said that the problem of low vaccination rates among health care workers is not limited to pertussis. “Influenza vaccination rates are typically below 60% when the targets are over 80%–90%,” Dr. Halperin said. “This puts health care workers and their patients at risk.”
The vaccine used in the study was provided by Sanofi-Pasteur, maker of the Tdap vaccine Adacel. Neither Dr. Top nor Dr. Halperin disclosed any personal conflicts of interest.