Vaccination as a part of the pharmacists’ professional role

• Main Author: Salem, Martin
• Format: Others
• Language: Swedish
• Published: Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för farmaceutisk biovetenskap 2021
• Subjects: Vaccination; Sverige; Farmaceutisk yrkesroll; Basic Medicine; Medicinska och farmaceutiska grundvetenskaper
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-445222

Background: Vaccines is currently only allowed to be administrated by nurses and doctors in Sweden. Since a few years back pharmacies have started to employ nurses hourly in order provide additional vaccination service for the customers. Aim: The aim was to examine pharmacists´ thoughts regarding implementing vaccination as a part of their daily work in Sweden. The main questions in the study were identifying factors that could influence their thoughts and decisions regarding that matter. Methods: A online survey containing 27 questions divided into four categories was created and distributed using google forms. Both the time required to answer the survey and the content of the questions was validated before distribution. The survey was distributed to licensed pharmacists within Kronans Apotek in Sweden on 24-november 2020, answers was accepted for 11 days. The data was analyzed mainly with descriptive statistics and Persons Chi-squared test. Results: A total of 411 forms was returned (44% response rate).The majority of respondents (71%) were either positive or neutral regarding administration of vaccine. In comparison to other age groups, pharmacists aged 20-30 years was more willing to accept vaccination in the professional role. Men (61%) were more willing to implement vaccination than women (46%). Regarding work experience, lowest portion respondents willing to vaccinate was found within the first 2 years and after 20 years of work experience. The fear of needles (25%), increased workload (13%), unexpected allergic reactions(16%) and vaccination not being within the pharmacists’ type of task (21%) was given of the respondents as the most common reasons to not wanting to vaccinate. Conclusions: Despite the mentioned hinders the overall attitude regarding implementation of vaccination was considered positive, specially by men and by younger respondents. None of the other factor was shown to have any huge impact on the respondents regarding that matter.