The use of Academic Detailing to promote influenza vaccination among healthcare workers in hospital

Background: Annual influenza vaccination is recommended for healthcare workers (HCWs) to reduce risk to themselves and especially to their frail patients. The vaccination rate in Gemelli Teaching Hospital (GTH) HCWs is increasing during last years but it is still below the coverage rate recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) that advices at least 75% of at-risk groups (such as HCWs) have to be vaccinated. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of an Academic Detailing (AD) strategy to increase flu vaccination coverage and compare this among medical and non-medical HCWs. Methods: AD consisted in a face-to-face education led by public health physicians to health care professionals, especially head nurse of random sample of Clinical Units (CU), of the GTH and realized between October and December 2017. These trained HCWs educated the workers of their CU following the peer education principle. Chi squared test was used to assess differences in flu vaccination coverage between groups; statistical significance was set at 0.05. Analyses were performed using STATA. Results: In CU where HCWs have received the AD and where HCWs had the peer education, there were 1840 of 4118 HCWs. Control CU accounted for a total of 2278 HCWs. Flu vaccination coverage in HCWs belonging to CU that received the intervention was higher compared to controls (18,3% vs 8,7%, p < 0.001), both in medical (31,3% vs 19,6%, p < 0.001), nursing (13,3% vs 5,1%, p < 0.001) and non-medical (13,8% vs 6,0, p < 0.001) HCWs. Conclusions: Statistically significant increase in the overall flu vaccination coverage rate has been noticed in 2017 compared to the 2016 vaccination campaign (12,9% vs 8,7%, p < 0.001) and therefore AD might be considered a valuable intervention to enhance compliance with vaccination. Key messages: Academic Detailing is important but not crucial to improve flu vaccination coverage among medical, health professions and support staff. New strategies should be developed to reach the WHO recommendations for HCWs.