Major article
Seasonal influenza vaccination uptake in Quebec, Canada, 2 years after the influenza A(H1N1) pandemic

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajic.2014.01.006Get rights and content

Background

A decrease in seasonal influenza vaccine uptake was observed after the influenza A(H1N1) pandemic in 2009. The goal of our study was to assess seasonal influenza vaccine uptake in 2011-2012, 2 years after the influenza A(H1N1) pandemic mass immunization campaign and to identify the main reasons for having or not having received the vaccine.

Methods

A telephone survey using random-digit dialing methodology was conducted. Case-weights were assigned to adjust for disproportionate sampling and for nonresponse bias. Descriptive statistics were generated for all variables.

Results

Seasonal influenza vaccine uptake was 57% among adults aged ≥60 years, 35% among adults with chronic medical conditions, and 44% among health care workers. The main reasons given for having been vaccinated were to be protected from influenza and a high perceived susceptibility to influenza, whereas low perceived susceptibility to influenza and low perceived severity of influenza were the main reasons for not having been vaccinated.

Conclusions

An increase in seasonal influenza vaccine uptake was observed 2 years after the influenza A(H1N1) pandemic. However, vaccine coverage is still below the target level of 80%. More efforts are needed to develop effective strategies to increase seasonal influenza vaccine uptake.

Section snippets

Methods

Results presented here are drawn from the 2012 Quebec study on vaccination against seasonal influenza, pneumococcal infections, and measles (l'Enquête québécoise sur la vaccination contre la grippe saisonnière, le pneumocoque et la rougeole [EQVGPR], 2012),4 a cross-sectional study conducted by telephone among a representative sample of Quebec households. We focus only on the EQVGPR section related to influenza vaccination for which eligible respondents were aged 60 years or older, were adults

Results

The response rate for the EQVGPR was 48% and a total of 2,516 individuals aged ≥60 years, 2,289 individuals with chronic medical conditions aged 18-59 years, and 754 health care workers aged 18-59 years participated in the study. A subgroup of respondents who completed the questionnaire pertaining to seasonal influenza vaccination and their characteristics are shown in Table 1. Among adults with chronic medical conditions, asthma was reported mainly by adults aged 18-49 years (69.5% vs 37.3%

Discussion

Results of our study indicate that influenza vaccination coverage for targeted groups is still below the objective of 80%, ranging from 29.9% for adults with chronic medical conditions to 43.5% of health care workers and 56.6% for individuals aged ≥60 years. However, with vaccine uptake comparable to the 2007-2008 estimates,2 our results show that the decrease observed in seasonal influenza vaccination coverage following the mass vaccination campaign for influenza A(H1N1) pandemic influenza was

Conclusions

Our results indicate that seasonal influenza vaccine uptake among at-risk groups targeted by the publicly funded program in Quebec remains well below the goal of 80% coverage rate, but did return to the level reached before the influenza A(H1N1) pandemic. In fact, seasonal influenza vaccine uptake rates in at-risk groups have remained relatively stable over time, despite highly accessible vaccination services and efforts on the part of public health authorities to promote the use of this

Cited by (25)

  • A review of hospital-based interventions to improve inpatient influenza vaccination uptake for high-risk adults

    2021, Vaccine
    Citation Excerpt :

    Perceiving the likelihood of getting the disease or of oneself as less susceptible to the disease is associated with low uptake of vaccines. As an example, a Canadian study found that the most commonly reported reason to opt out of influenza vaccination in people aged ≥ 60 years and people with chronic medical conditions were low perceived susceptibility to influenza or low perceived severity of the infection [44]. Previously the suggested solution to this issue has been to educate the individual, as seen in our review.

  • Vaccine hesitancy and self-vaccination behaviors among nurses in southeastern France

    2020, Vaccine
    Citation Excerpt :

    Furthermore, our study, which is the first to address VH among French nurses, showed a high prevalence of VH (44%), with hesitancy focused mainly on the vaccines against seasonal influenza, hepatitis B, and HPV; VH was significantly and independently more prevalent among hospital compared with community nurses and among those with high vaccine risk perception or low trust in the MoH. Our results are in line with those of previous articles about nurses’ vaccine behaviors in various countries, which have shown that uptake rates among nurses are most often below health authorities’ targets and lower than among physicians [14,22–25] (targets in France: 75% for seasonal influenza vaccine and 95% for the others [26,27]). Self-reported vaccine uptake rates were especially low in our study for vaccines against seasonal influenza and varicella.

  • Effectiveness of an intervention campaign on influenza vaccination of professionals in nursing homes: A cluster-randomized controlled trial

    2019, Vaccine
    Citation Excerpt :

    In contrast, for other institutions, the fact that this campaign was to take place over a long period of time was seen as an aid to the achievement of substantive work aimed at changing the perceptions of caregivers. Reservations about vaccination among some caregivers have already been reported in France [7], as in other countries [23], especially for influenza, since the H1N1 vaccination campaign [23]. Hence, low vaccination coverage rates are observed in nursing homes in particular [7–9].

  • The views of key stakeholders around mandatory influenza vaccination of hospital and aged care staff: Examining the current climate in Australia

    2019, Vaccine
    Citation Excerpt :

    While national guidelines recommend that ACFs should aim for 95% of their staff to be vaccinated, only 3.5% of the surveyed ACFs reported uptake rates at this level in 2018 [8,9]. Internationally, coverage rarely exceeds 50% in many hospital settings [2,10-12]. More recent studies out of the US have reported employee coverage levels at nursing homes and long-term care facilities of around 50% [13-15].

View all citing articles on Scopus

Conflicts of interest: None to report.

View full text