Background:

Sometimes and when a registry is not available, influenza vaccination (IV) is based on vaccination records reported by citizens, and there may be discrepancies between the two sources of information. The objectives of this study were: to know the IV coverage in pregnant women (both referred and recorded in the clinical history), to determine the concordance between both sources of information and to quantify the lost opportunities of IV due to errors in verbalization.

Methods:

From June to September after the IV campaigns 2013/2014 and 2014/2015, a cross-sectional survey was carried out to a random sample of 657 pregnant women assisted in seven ASSIR (public centers for sexual and reproductive care) in Catalonia. The history of IV referred by the pregnant women and those of the vaccination record of the computerized clinical history were collected. Vaccination coverage was calculated for each source of information, it was also calculated the concordance between both (Kappa index) and the proportion of pregnant women who reported receiving the IV without having received it. This indicator was analyzed according to the different variables compared to globality through the Chi-square test. The accepted statistical significance level was p <0.05.

Results:

The referred vaccination coverage was 22.2% (95% CI: 19.0% -25.4%) and 15.4% (95% CI: 12.6% -18.2%) according to the vaccination record (p = 0.0019). Despite the good concordance between both sources (Kappa = 0.738), one out of every three pregnant women who said they were vaccinated was not according to the registry. The lower concordance and the lost opportunities of IV occurred in the upper social strata, at intermediate fertile ages and when there was previous knowledge and experience of IV.

Conclusions:

The coverage of IV in pregnant women continues to be low. In spite of the good concordance between both sources of information, one out of three unvaccinated believe that they have been vaccinated, as result they can lose a vaccination opportunity.

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