Introduction: Health care workers (HCWs) are exposed to infectious diseases and are considered to be at increased risk for significant morbidity or even mortality for both themselves and susceptible patients. 
Purpose: The aim of this study was to record vaccine coverage against vaccine-preventable diseases of the nursing and auxiliary staff working in the only tertiary hospital in Crete, a big prefecture of Greece.

Methods: Data collection took place after a short personal interview with each employee based on selected relevant questions from August to November 2017. The interview was taken by the same person for each study participant.

Results: Data were collected from 823 out of a total of 851 individuals (response rate 96.6%). Self-reported vaccination rate for hepatitis B vaccine was 80.4%, for hepatitis A 4.7%, tetanus-diphtheria 56%, with 63.3% among vaccinated staff having received the vaccine more than ten years ago. Vaccine coverage for pertussis was as low as 0.2%, while 19.6% of workers were vaccinated with MMR, and another 38.1% and 46.8% had reported to be naturally immune for mumps and measles, respectively. Influenza vaccine uptake ranged from 13.2% (2012) to 20.3% (2017), with only 8.7% having been vaccinated each year. Younger employees (<40years) were overall better vaccinated, while no difference was found for HCWs from High-Dependency, Intensive Care Units and Oncology Department, with the exemption of vaccine coverage for MMR which was found to be higher in Intensive Care Units and for HCWs in departments with immunocompromised patients (p<0.01). 

Conclusions: Vaccination rates for vaccine-preventable diseases among the nursing and auxiliary staff of a tertiary hospital are suboptimal, despite vaccine promoting campaigns, implicating the need of more intense vaccination strategies for HCWs.

SUBOPTIMAL VACCINATION COVERAGE OF NURSING AND AUXILIARY STAFF IN A TERTIARY UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL