@article {FarahatA212, author = {FM Farahat and A AlSaedi and MF AbdulAziz}, title = {1553 Influenza infection and immunisation coverage among healthcare professionals in national guard hospital, western saudi arabia}, volume = {75}, number = {Suppl 2}, pages = {A212--A213}, year = {2018}, doi = {10.1136/oemed-2018-ICOHabstracts.603}, publisher = {BMJ Publishing Group Ltd}, abstract = {Introduction Burden of influenza infection among healthcare professionals (HCPs) is high including transmission to high risk and severely-ill patients. This chart review aims is to record laboratory confirmed influenza cases and influenza immunisation coverage among HCPs in Ministry of National Guard hospital, a 500-bed tertiary care hospital, in western Saudi Arabia.Methods Laboratory confirmed influenza cases among healthcare professionals from June 2014 {\textendash} June 2017 were reviewed. Influenza immunisation and reasons of declining to receive the vaccine were recorded.Results During the study period, 78 HCPs had laboratory confirmed influenza (9.1\% of all confirmed cases). There were 18 HCPs with H1N1 (8.1\%), 43 with influenza A (11.1\%) and 17 with influenza B (6.8\%). In the meantime, influenza immunisation coverage ranged from 33\%{\textendash}64\% among physicians, 80\%{\textendash}93\% among nurses and 32\%{\textendash}41\% among paramedicals (i.e., medical technicians, pharmacists and administrators). Reasons of declining influenza vaccination included doubt of the need for the vaccine (27.8\%), concern of vaccine safety (21.0\%), bad experience following vaccination in the previous year (41.5\%), insufficient time to attend immunisation clinic (9.6\%) and fear of the needle (6.6\%).Conclusion Number of confirmed influenza cases is mostly under-reported. HCPs are at increased risk for influenza infection and efforts should focus on Infection prevention strategies and increasing immunisation coverage among HCPs and patients.}, issn = {1351-0711}, URL = {https://oem.bmj.com/content/75/Suppl_2/A212.3}, eprint = {https://oem.bmj.com/content/75/Suppl_2/A212.3.full.pdf}, journal = {Occupational and Environmental Medicine} }