IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v19y2022i14p8568-d862241.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Randomised Controlled Study on Measures to Increase Vaccination Rates among German Armed Forces Soldiers

Author

Listed:
  • Jana Nele Arnold

    (Bundeswehr Hospital Hamburg, 20359 Hamburg, Germany
    Department of Occupational Medicine, Otto-von-Guericke Universität, 39106 Magdeburg, Germany)

  • Nils Gundlach

    (Medical Clinic Rotenburg (Wümme), 27356 Rotenburg, Germany)

  • Irina Böckelmann

    (Department of Occupational Medicine, Otto-von-Guericke Universität, 39106 Magdeburg, Germany)

  • Stefan Sammito

    (Department of Occupational Medicine, Otto-von-Guericke Universität, 39106 Magdeburg, Germany
    German Air Force Centre for Aerospace Medicine, 51147 Cologne, Germany)

Abstract

Vaccination is one of the most effective medical measures for preventing infectious diseases. Even though there are recommendations for specific occupational groups that have an increased risk of infection, e.g., armed forces personnel, there are gaps in the vaccination rates of this personal. We conducted a randomised and controlled cohort study to examine whether a computerised reminder system would increase the vaccination rates of active soldiers over a period of twelve months. A total of 506 soldiers with a mean age of 27.7 ± 6.5 years (experimental group (EG)) and 27.9 ± 6.3 years (control group (CG)) were included in our study. Only 26.2% of the EG and 31.3% of the CG had received the required vaccinations at the beginning of our study. The vaccination rates for influenza (50.5% and 49.1%) and tick-borne encephalitis (57.1% and 60.7%) were particularly low, for measles, mumps, and rubella they were high (94.3% and 97.8%). A highly significant increase ( p < 0.001) in vaccination rates was observed for both groups during our study. The results revealed considerable vaccination gaps among German armed forces soldiers. Despite a highly significant increase in vaccination rates during the study, there is still a clear need for action.

Suggested Citation

  • Jana Nele Arnold & Nils Gundlach & Irina Böckelmann & Stefan Sammito, 2022. "Randomised Controlled Study on Measures to Increase Vaccination Rates among German Armed Forces Soldiers," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(14), pages 1-10, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:14:p:8568-:d:862241
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/14/8568/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/14/8568/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ewelina Ejchman-Pac & Julian Wójtowicz & Magdalena Zawadzka, 2023. "Analysis of Non-Compulsory Influenza and COVID-19 Vaccination among Polish Soldiers," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(4), pages 1-9, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:14:p:8568-:d:862241. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.