Australian healthcare providers' awareness of and practices related to vaccine safety surveillance.

Abstract

Objectives Healthcare providers play a critical role in increasing vaccine coverage and public confidence in the safety of vaccines. The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and COVID-19 vaccine responses have posed unique challenges to vaccine safety surveillance and community confidence in immunisation. The need to maintain confidence for high vaccine uptake, reinforces the need for a holistic, robust approach to post-licensure vaccine safety surveillance. This study aimed to examine healthcare providers' perceptions of vaccine safety surveillance. Methods A cross-sectional study with Australian healthcare providers was conducted between November and December 2021. General practitioners, nurses, and pharmacists in current or previous roles administering vaccines were invited to participate in an online survey that assessed their awareness of, and practices related to, vaccine safety surveillance systems. The survey was disseminated via healthcare provider professional networks. Results Of the 562 completed surveys, 552 were included in the analysis. The majority of the healthcare providers (96%) reported being aware that Australia has mechanisms in place to monitor the safety of vaccines after they are approved for use. However, almost a third of participants were not aware of the AusVaxSafety active vaccine safety surveillance system. Among healthcare providers, nurses were more aware of surveillance systems and reported the highest utilisation of vaccine safety surveillance data in their clinical practice. Participants reported confidence in the safety of vaccines as a result of the existence of vaccine safety surveillance systems. Conclusions Healthcare providers in this study showed confidence in the safety of vaccines. However, our findings indicate that despite providers demonstrating increased confidence as a result of the existence of vaccine safety surveillance systems, further efforts should be made to increase immunisation providers' awareness of the systems, particularly in regards to the accessibility and utility of AusVaxSafety vaccine safety data.