Design and validation of a questioinnaire on the attitudes of health professionals towards the official recommendation of influenza vaccination

Background: Actually, there are no studies related to the attitudes of health professionals towards the official recommendation of influenza vaccination, despite the fact that there are numerous investigations that have addressed their own attitude towards vaccination. The objective is to design the Questionnaire on the Attitudes of Healthcare Professionals towards the Official Flu Vaccination Recommendations (CAPSVA). Methods: Quasi-experimental study. The control group included Instrumental study was conducted between February and March 2019 with 288 professionals of Medicine, Nursing and Pharmacy of the Principado of Asturias (Spain). The sampling was non-probabilistic of incidental type. After content validation, a tool was designed with 16 items in three dimensions. Reliability (alpha ordinal) and internal validity (exploratory factorial analysis using the parallel analysis method) analyses were performed, as well as frequency analysis and mean comparisons. Results: The exploratory factor analysis yielded a 3-factor solution that explained 79.38% of the total variance. The ordinal alpha ranged from 0,72 to 0,80. The test-retest recorded a value of r= 0,804 (p < 0,001). There were no statistically significant differences when comparing according to sex (p = 0,952), professional group (p = 0,563) or having received influenza vaccination in the last campaign (p = 0,861). There were these differences when comparing the number of years of professional practice (p = 0,003) and having received specific training in vaccines in the last year (p = 0,004). More than 90% of the participants valued positively the influenza vaccination strategy of the Autonomous Community of study (quadrivalent vaccine for <65 years and adjuvant trivalent for >= 65 years). Conclusions: A questionnaire with sufficient guarantees of reliability and internal validity is available to evaluate the attitudes of health professionals towards the official recommendation of influenza vaccination.