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Vaccine skepticism in nursing: »Connection between qualification and vaccination readiness«

2021-01-27T14:07:31.508Z


The willingness to vaccinate ranges from enthusiasm to refusal. Rolf Dubb trains intensive care nurses and says: The better your colleagues are familiar with medicine, the more likely they are to want protection against corona.


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Photo: Matthias Bein / picture alliance / dpa

SPIEGEL:

Mr. Dubb, you are training medical nursing staff.

Do you have to make your employees aware of the vaccination with eggnog?

Dubb:

No, the majority of my colleagues in medical care would rather get vaccinated today than tomorrow.

At our clinic, we have no problems filling the vaccine offerings, as the availability of vaccines is the limiting factor.

I know colleagues who therefore privately try to get a vaccination appointment.

SPIEGEL:

In the case of outpatient services and care for the elderly, things looked different, especially in November or December.

Many nurses in these areas reacted with skepticism at first, some employers responded with dismissals, others with incentives, such as eggnog.

Dubb:

I think it's good when managers get creative to encourage conversation about vaccination.

With the care provider you are talking about, this was combined with information events that are important for a well-considered decision.

However, that would not be necessary with us.

SPIEGEL:

Why not?

Dubb:

Many of us deal directly with corona patients.

Anyone who has seen live what the disease does to people wants to protect themselves from it as best they can.

And because Covid-19 is highly contagious, self-protection always means protecting patients, relatives and friends.

SPIEGEL:

Not everyone who works as nurses in hospitals has to do with caring for corona patients.

Dubb:

Outsiders often think so, but the disease affects all departments, even when it comes to infection control.

We even have to deal with infected people in the maternity ward.

Few people with medical expertise do not immediately see the benefits of vaccination.

A few days ago I did a survey in one of our advanced training classes, specialists from emergency rooms from all over Baden-Württemberg.

80 percent of them are already vaccinated.

SPIEGEL:

But that's not representative.

Dubb:

No.

But there was a survey in December of nurses and doctors in clinics.

The doctors were willing to vaccinate 73 percent, and the nursing staff was 50 percent.

The survey took place before the vaccinations began, and the values ​​are now likely to be significantly higher.

The German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive and Emergency Medicine (DIVI), which carried out the survey, agrees.

SPIEGEL:

What makes you sure about that?

Dubb:

At the time, many still expressed concerns about possible side effects.

We now know that there are no problems with this in practice.

Even then, 90 percent of doctors and 75 percent of nurses believed that vaccination was important to contain the pandemic.

SPIEGEL:

How do you explain it when employees of care services reject the vaccination?

Dubb:

I hope that many of them are simply uninformed.

Many who work in geriatric care have little medical knowledge - which, by the way, is changing for the better with the reform of the care professions.

From my point of view there is a connection between medical qualifications and willingness to vaccinate.

The willingness to do this is particularly high in intensive care units, where I've worked for 30 years myself.

There you always have to deal with a large number of germs, many of them highly resistant.

You have to protect yourself there.

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Source: spiegel

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