Attitudes of students, residents and general practitioners towards vaccination

The study presented in the article was performed at the Department of Family Medicine of North-Western State Medical University named after I.I. Mechnikov. The aim of study was to assess the attitude of general practitioners, residents, and students towards vaccination.

Materials and methods. The study involved 22 students, 14 residents and 21 general practitioners. Participants completed a questionnaire that included questions about self-assessment of the level of knowledge in the field of vaccination, attitude towards vaccination, opinion about its effectiveness, etc. Statistical analysis was performed using the software SPSS 20.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA) and MedCalc 11.5.00 (Medcalc Software, Oostende). The Chi-square test was used to assess intergroup differences.

Results and discussion. 61% of the participants rated their own level of knowledge in the field of vaccine prevention as good, 21% as satisfactory and 5% as excellent. The most confident in their level of knowledge were students, in the second place – residents and in the third place – doctors (p < 0.05). 90% of respondents identified their attitude to vaccination as positive. 95.5% of students, 85.7% of residents and 76.2% of doctors noted that vaccination is necessary (mandatory). The effectiveness of vaccination is considered high by 86% of participants. When asked whether the respondents do preventive vaccinations for themselves and their children, the majority chose the options “Yes, within the national calendar plus additional” and “all within the national calendar” (51% and 39%, respectively).

Conclusion. The attitude of the surveyed doctors, residents and students to vaccination is mostly positive, the majority of respondents assess the effectiveness of vaccination as high. Most respondents are vaccinated in accordance with the national vaccination schedule, a large proportion of respondents also do vaccinations that are not included in the national schedule. Almost all respondents recommend preventive vaccinations to patients.