Awareness, attitudes and behavior of hospital healthcare workers towards a mandatory vaccination directive: two years on

In 2007, the state of New South Wales, Australia instituted a policy directive with compulsory provisions for health care workers to be vaccinated. This study sought to identify staff awareness and attitudes two years after it was implemented. It involved a self administered paper-based questionnaire of HCWs in two tertiary-referral teaching hospitals in Sydney, Australia in 2009. In the early phase, general awareness of the policy was incomplete and detailed knowledge was poor. However, support levels were high. Two years later, while the respondents indicated that they were aware that there was a policy in place, very few of the respondents were able to accurately describe its requirements. Regardless of the level of knowledge, support for the policy was still high (83% vs. 91%, respectively). Despite the high levels of general support for the vaccine policy directive in NSW, this study indicates that including influenza vaccination into the policy could be challenging.