Résumé
@#Introduction: The incidence of pertussis is increasing amongst adolescents and adults. Therefore, adults require booster vaccination for protection against pertussis infection. Vaccination among healthcare workers (HCW) should be prioritized when a country implements an adult vaccine. However, the coverage of pertussis vaccination is still deficient among HCW due to low-risk perception. Method: This was a cross-sectional study using Survey Monkey (online). A total of 920 HCWs comprising of doctors, assistant medical officers (AMO), nurses, and environmental health officers (EHO) working at the hospitals and district health offices in Sabah and Sarawak were selected to partake in the study using a multistage sampling method. The website containing the questionnaire was given to the participants using either email or WhatsApp. Results: A total of 853 responders of whom 22.2% were doctors, 58.1% were nurses, 10.1% were medical assistants, and 9.6% were environmental health officers responded to the questionnaire. Most of the respondents (81.5%) are willing to receive the pertussis vaccine. The Protection Motivation score was significantly different between those willing and those not willing to take the vaccine (p-value<0.001). Robust path analysis showed that sociodemographic factors (age, the institution of working and prior pertussis vaccination) (p=0.004), threat (p<0.001) and coping pathway (p<0.001) were linked with the willingness to uptake vaccine. Conclusion: The sociodemographic factors of the HCW can affect the willingness of the HCW to uptake the pertussis vaccine directly and indirectly through their risk perception towards pertussis.
Résumé
@#Introduction: Pertussis is known to cause infection and reinfection to everyone irrespective of ages and countries. Therefore, adults do require vaccination for protection against pertussis infection especially the HCW. However, the pertussis vaccine coverage is low among HCW due to low-risk perception. Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) is one of the most cited theories to explain risk perception and intention to change. Therefore, we developed a questionnaire based on the subconstructs of the PMT to assess the acceptance of the pertussis vaccine amongst the HCWs in Sabah and Sarawak. The motive of this study is to validate this questionnaire to see its validity and reliability. Method: Data was collected using a self-administered questionnaire via an online survey (Monkey Survey). The questionnaire was given to 250 HCW. Items that were identified as a problem were modified to increase reliability. Further validation was done among 853 HCWs working in various parts of Sabah and Sarawak. Results: The Cronbach alpha of the overall construct of PMT during the first pilot study was 0.66 and improved to 0.82. Principal components factor analysis using varimax rotations showed that the first four factors explained 28%, 2%, 9% and 5% of the variance respectively. Both the one level and two-level modelling indicated that it’s a good fit model. Conclusion: The study instrument that was developed for the study has been tested and proven to be relevant to assess the risk perception of an HCW towards pertussis.