Background: Vaccinations, e. g., against hepatitis B, are recommended for health care workers in order to minimize the risk of occupational infections. While medical students come into contact with patients early in their medical education, sufficient vaccination is not routinely checked during their training. Hence, we wanted to assess the prevalence of medical students (fourth year) not sufficiently vaccinated against occupationally relevant infectious diseases (hepatitis A and B, measles, mumps, German measles, poliomyelitis) at the two medical schools in Munich.
Methods: One hundred and forty nine students of the medical school at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University and 89 students of the medical school at the Technical University completed a standardized questionnaire on demographic data, vaccination status and personal attitude towards vaccinations.
Results: Nine percent of the students at the Ludwig-Maximilans-University and one percent of the medical students at the Technical University reported not to have been vaccinated against hepatitis B. The relative frequency of students not vaccinated against hepatitis A was higher and did not differ between the medical schools (LMU: 35.9 %, TU: 40.5 %; 95 % Confidence Interval for the difference: -17.7-+ 8.5 %). The prevalence of vaccination especially against German measles among women was unsatisfactory. Individual vaccination status of the students seemed to be related to their personal attitude towards vaccinations.
Conclusion: In order to increase the prevalence of hepatitis B vaccination among medical students they should be informed more intensively about the free of charge vaccination early during their education, e. g., before the beginning of their medical training.