Awareness and knowledge of pneumococcal vaccination in cardiology outpatient clinics and impact of physicians' recommendation on vaccination rates

Abstract

Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: None. Background Although there is not enough data on pneumococcal vaccination status in patients with cardiovascular disease and or risk factors in our country, it is known that vaccination rates are quite low in the current data. Purpose We aimed to evaluate the awareness of pneumococcal vaccination (PCV13, PPSV23) in general cardiology outpatient clinics and impact of physician’s recommendation (with educational brochures) on vaccination rate. Methods Awareness of vaccination, before COVID-19 pandemic, was measured in patients admitting to cardiology outpatient clinics from 40 center of our country by a questionnaire contained 19 questions. The demographics (including gender, age, educational level, awareness vaccination level) and comorbidities were obtained. The vaccination rates were calculated within 3-months follow-up from the admitting of patient to cardiology clinics. Results The 403 (18.2%) of patients with previous pneumococcal vaccination were excluded from the study. The mean age of study population (n=1808) was 61.9±12.1 years and 55.4% were male. The 58.7% had coronary artery disease, hypertension (74.1%) was the most common risk factor and 32.7% of the patients had never been vaccinated although they had information about vaccination before. The 98.5% were referred to family medicine (n=1412, 78.1%) or vaccination outpatient clinics (n=370, 20.5%) and the vaccination rate was 62.1% during the follow-up period. The differences between vaccinated and not-vaccinated patients are presented in Table 1. The physician’s recommendation was positively correlated with vaccination intention and behavior in our participants. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed a significant between vaccination and female sex [OR=1.55 (95% CI=1.25–1.92), p<0.001], higher education level [OR=1.49 (95% CI=1.15-1.92), p=0.002] patients’ knowledge [OR=1.93 (95% CI=1.56-2.40), p<0.001], and their physician’s recommendation [OR=5.12 (95% CI=1.92-13.68), p=0.001]. Conclusion To our knowledge this is the first report about the awareness pneumococcal vaccination rates and impact of physician’s recommendation in patients with cardiovascular disease by high study population. These findings suggest providing information on the benefits of vaccination by physician’s and educational advice was significantly associated with an increase vaccination rate and have a key role.

Low Pneumococcal Vaccination among Patients with Psoriasis in Germany: Results from Vac-Pso

“…Consistent with our finding of lacking physician’s vaccination recommendation being a major determinant of negative vaccination status, Lindsley et al [ 29 ] concluded that vaccination recommendation resulted in increased vaccination rates in patients treated with immunosuppressants due to a dermatological condition. This effect was also identified in other patient populations, for example in diabetic and cardiology patients, indicating that awareness about the beneficial aspects of vaccination brought forward by physicians proves to have a positive influence on vaccination status [ 30 , 31 ]. Informational campaigns by healthcare professionals and providers could address the patient’s fear of contracting pneumonia and establish confidence in the vaccination [ 32 ].…”