Measures to Improve Influenza Vaccination Coverage in Spanish Medical Students

Abstract

Objective: To find out what measures medical students believe could help improve their influenza vaccination coverage. Method: On 5 November 2019, the Dean of the Zaragoza Medical School sent an e-mail to the students asking them to fill out a questionnaire through Google Forms, in which they were asked to describe, in an open field, the measures that they believed could contribute to improving their flu vaccination coverage. The content of the responses was analyzed in a classic way, extracting descriptors and selecting the most representative verbatim accounts. Results: The main measures proposed were to improve the training on influenza and its vaccine, to improve the accessibility of the vaccine in time and space, to provide incentives to get vaccinated, to create visible and positive attitudes towards the vaccine, and to increase the diffusion of information about the vaccination campaign. Conclusion: This qualitative study has found potential measures to be applied specifically to medical students to improve their vaccination coverage in our country.