Real life experience of knowledge, attitudes and acceptance rate of covid-19 and influenza vaccine administration in one of the main vaccination hub of sicilian region at the university hospital of palermo, Italy

Abstract

Introduction: In temperate countries of the southern hemisphere, influenza surveillance showed an increase in influenza circulation in 2022 season, anticipating a peak of influenza cases in the Northern hemisphere during 2022/2023 season. The Italian Health Ministry strongly recommend coadministration of seasonal influenza vaccines with other vaccines, including bivalent COVID-19 vaccines. The Vaccination HUB of University Hospital (UH) of Palermo, since the beginning of the campaign, administered over 90, 000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines and more than 900 influenza vaccines have been co-administered with COVID-19 vaccines in the 2021/2022 season. Materials and methods Data were collected from October to December 2022 at the Vaccination Hub of UH of Palermo, using a self-administered online questionnaire to subjects afferent to the Center, by Google® Forms platform. The research group had access and recorded all data on a password-protected Excel file (ver. 1997–2003). The questionnaire consisting in 15 items, the informative of the study and the consent form was approved by the Ethic Committee of the Palermo’s UH Results: Overall, 904 subjects answered the questionnaire. 74.5% of the respondents were willing to receive the co-administration with the COVID19 and seasonal influenza vaccines. The main reason reported for accepting the coadministration was confidence in the official recommendations (43.5%) whereas 46.6% were not willing to receive the co-administration for fear of side effects. At the multivariable analysis subject with age ≤59 years (AdJOR: 0.48;CI95%:0.31–0.75) and those who received the two vaccines co-administered during the last season (AdJOR: 87.1;CI95%:61.4–463.8) were significantly associated with coadministration during 2022/2023 season. Conclusion: First data obtained from this study show that those who received COVID19 and seasonal influenza vaccination in the same session also in the 2021/2022 season are willing to receive the co-administration of the two vaccinations again for the current season, arguing for the absolute safety and efficacy of the co-administration.