Knowledges, attitudes and behaviours of adults about adult vaccines

Abstract

Objective: Adult immunization is currently a center of interest for all over the world. The aim of this study is to investigate knowledge, attitude and behaviors of adults regarding adult immunization.

Methods: In this descriptive study, a questionnaire consists of 18 items exploring demographic variables and knowledge, attitude and behaviors regarding adult immunization was implemented to the patients admitted to the five family health centers in three major central districts of Antalya. Data was analyzed with SPSS 19 software. Mean and standard deviations were used for descriptive analysis as well as Chi-square, Kruskal-Wallis tests and Spearman correlation analysis were used for comparisons. P<0.05 was accepted for statistical significance.

Results: Ages of the 100 participants were ranged between 19-63 and mean duration of education were 9.9±4.3 years. 50% of the participants were female. 59% had at least one immunization procedure during their adult lives. Majority of these vaccinations were tetanus toxoid (43 participants). Regarding knowledge about immunization, 37% of respondents stated that only adults with certain diseases should be vaccinated and immunization of the whole community is not necessary; 36% of participants stated that they know that there are vaccines for adults but they don’t know what these vaccines are. The most well-known vaccine was influenza vaccine (32%) followed by tetanus (30%), hepatitis-B (12%), HPV (9%), pneumococcal vaccine (5%), MMR (3%), Herpes zoster (1%), rabies (1%) and meningitis (1%). Immunized and non-immunized participants did not significantly differ in their opinions about adult immunization (p>0.05).

Conclusions: Our study suggested that adults do not have sufficient knowledge about adult immunization which is leading to low immunization rates below desired level.