Background: Nurses play a crucial role in the prevention of communicable diseases through the public health immunization programs. Knowledge, attitude and practices of health care providers have significant impact on the vaccine administration and education of adults and parents of children.Objective: The present qualitative study aims to explore the knowledge, attitude and practices of nurses in Qatar before and after the delivery of the immunization-related continuous professional development program. Methods: 10 out of 125 nurses who have completed the training program volunteered to participate in the face-to-face interviews. Data was then collected, transcribed and analysed by the researcher team members. Results: Themes identified from this study: Empowerment, advancing practice and continuing education. Participants felt more confident and had a sense of fulfilment on completion of the education program. Practicing evidenced based skills and methods achieved an outcome of better quality of care, which can directly affect practice. Participants also felt that continuing education allows them to become self-motivated to keep up with new and emerging knowledge. Taken together, our data revealed that continuing professional education immunization-training program was successful in improving the knowledge, attitude and practices of the participants. Conclusions: Continued education beyond traditional baccalaureate nursing programs in order to ensure nurses possess the knowledge to safely handle, teach and administer vaccines is needed.

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Background: Primary healthcare nurses are pivotal to the successful uptake of immunization worldwide. Central to this, is the attitude and practice nurses may have toward vaccines during administration. It is postulated that altering knowledge towards immunization may impact both attitude and practice towards successful immunization uptake. The aim of this research was to assess nurses’ knowledge, attitude and practice after the delivery of a three-day continuing professional development program regarding administration, safe handling and delivery of vaccines. Method: This research consisted of a quantitative cross-sectional study, utilizing a self-administered survey. The survey contained questions related to immunization knowledge, attitude, and practice. Before and after attendance of an immunization program for continuing professional development, the survey was administered to nurses working in well-baby clinics, communicable diseases clinics, travel clinics and school nurses. Specific areas identified gaps in knowledge, attitude, and practice among participating nurses. Results: Results from our study suggest that attitudes and practices of participants identified a significant difference after receiving an immunization educational program that focused on administration and delivery of immunization skills. Conclusion: Continuous professional development activities such as this have shown a marked increase in the attitude and practices of nurses making it tantamount to the success of vaccine uptake. Implications for Practice: Nurses are poised to be frontline advocates for the uptake of immunization; therefore education and training needs to be provided in order for them to understand and further affect change. Keywords: Vaccine, Immunization, Knowledge, Attitude, Practice