Knowledge and Attitudes of School Teachers on Vaccination in Greece

Despoina Gkentzi; Eleni Benetatou; Ageliki Karatza; Markos Marangos; Anastasia Varvarigou; Gabriel Dimitriou

doi:10.3947/ic.2020.0153

Knowledge and Attitudes of School Teachers on Vaccination in Greece

Infect Chemother. 2021 Jun;53(2):364-367. doi: 10.3947/ic.2020.0153.

Authors

Despoina Gkentzi¹, Eleni Benetatou², Ageliki Karatza³, Markos Marangos⁴, Anastasia Varvarigou³, Gabriel Dimitriou³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Paediatrics, Patras Medical School, Patras, Greece. gkentzid@hotmail.com.
² 56th Primary School, Directorate of Primary Education of Achaia, Patras, Greece.
³ Department of Paediatrics, Patras Medical School, Patras, Greece.
⁴ Division of Infectious Diseases, Patras Medical School, Patras, Greece.

Abstract

Few studies have assessed attitudes and beliefs of school teachers on vaccination. Our cross-sectional questionnaire-based prospective survey aims to explore vaccination coverage and relevant knowledge of school teachers in Greece. Out of the 217 respondents, 93% believe that vaccines offer protection but only 69.7% were completely vaccinated as per adults' National Immunization Schedule. In multivariate analysis, female gender, being a parent, beliefs that vaccination should be mandatory and imposing penalties to vaccine refusals are the main factors that account for teachers' "behavioral" variability towards vaccination. Strengthening the training of school teachers in health promotion should become a priority in the era of the highly anticipated vaccine against severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2).

Keywords: Attitudes; Immunization; Knowledge; School teachers; Vaccination.