Vaccination coverage in healthcare workers: a multicenter cross-sectional study in Italy

IntroductionIn recent years, a phenomenon known as "vaccine hesitancy" has spread throughout the world, even among health workers, determining a reduction in vaccination coverage (VC). A study aimed at evaluating VC among healthcare workers (HCWs) in 10 Italian cities (L'Aquila, Genoa, Milan, Palermo, Sassari, Catanzaro, Ferrara, Catania, Naples, Messina) was performed.Materials and methodsAnnex 3 of the Presidential Decree n. 445 of 28 December 2000 was used to collect information on the vaccination status of HCWs. The mean and standard deviation (SD) were calculated with regard to the quantitative variable (age), while absolute and relative frequencies were obtained for categorical data (sex, professional profile, working sector, vaccination status). The connection between VC and the categorical variables was evaluated by chi-square method (statistical significance at p<0.05). The statistical analyses were performed by SPSS and Stata software.ResultsA total of 3,454 HCWs participated in the project: 1,236 males and 2,218 females. The sample comprised: physicians (26.9%), trainee physicians (16.1%), nurses (17.2%) and other professional categories (9.8%). Low VC was generally recorded. Higher VC was found with regard to polio, hepatitis B, tetanus and diphtheria, while coverage was very low for measles, mumps, rubella, pertussis, chickenpox and influenza (20-30%). ConclusionsThis study revealed low VC rates among HCWs for all the vaccinations. Measures to increase VC are therefore necessary in order to prevent HCWs from becoming a source of transmission of infections with high morbidity and/or mortality both within hospitals and outside

Strategies of representation for action verbs in Italian Sign Language

Strategies of representation for action verbs in Italian Sign Language In the verbal languages, the most high-frequency verbs referring to Action in everyday communication are “general”, since they can refer to different action schemas. Is that the same in Sign Languages (SL)? Studying action verbs in Sign Languages is very interesting because 1) SL makes embodiment visible; 2) SL can be considered a special window to explore the route from action perception, to concept construction, to expression of actions; 3) it is possible to verify similarities and differences between semantic classifications created through spoken languages and those created through SL. The projects IMAGACT and MODELACT have identified and represented 1010 distinct action concepts with prototypical filmed scenes. This linguistic infrastructure have been used to investigate action verbs in spoken languages as well as in Italian Sign Language (LIS). Sign languages give the possibility to represent an action incorporating some of the verb arguments and/or modality of execution in a mimetic way: as a matter of fact, different action types, labelled in English or Italian by a general verb such as “to turn”, are represented by different specific signs. The present study aims to investigate systematically how deaf signing children use general and/or specific verbs to represent different actions. To investigate LIS productions, five Italian action verbs, frequently used in children’s spoken lexicon, have been selected (Caselli et al., 2015): prendere (to take), aprire (to open), girare (to turn), rompere (to break) and attaccare (to attach). For each of these verbs 9 different videos (extracted from the IMAGACT Database) referring to specific action types have been shown to deaf signing children. Participants were 24 deaf signing children (5-10 years): 13 exposed early to LIS (first year of age) and 11 exposed later (after 36 months of age). Children were asked to describe the action performed. All LIS productions have been video recorded (total 882).92 In LIS, producing a «General verb» means using the same LIS verb to describe different types of action; producing «Specific verbs» means that the child performs a different verb according to how the action is performed, which is the object involved in the action, its affordances, and/or representing other semantic features. Children produced a specific verb in most cases - 72.26% - and a general verb in only 12.10% of cases (and mainly with one of the action proposed: prendere (to take)). Moreover, 6.96% of participants used a mixed strategy (general verb + specific verb), 6.51% used a semantically linked verb, while 2.17% used an out-of-target verb. There is a clear effect of age of LIS exposure: children exposed early produce more specific verbs with respect to children exposed later: 60.6% versus 53%. References Moneglia M. (2014). The variation of action verbs in multilingual spontaneous speech corpora: Semantic typology and corpus design. In T. Raso, H. Mello (eds.), Spoken Corpora and Linguistic Studies, 152-188. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Rinaldi P., Caselli M.C., Di Renzo A., Gulli T., Volterra V. (2014). Sign vocabulary in deaf toddlers exposed to Sign Language since birth. In Journal of deaf studies and deaf education, 19, 303-318. http://imagact.lablita.it and http://modelact.lablita.it

Experience and attitudes on vaccinations recommended during pregnancy: survey on an Italian sample of women and consultant gynecologists

Active immunization in pregnancy is recommended for the influenza and the tetanus, diphtheria, and acellular pertussis (Tdap) vaccines. Evidence indicates vaccine effectiveness in preventing influenza-related hospitalizations and pertussis in early infancy. We investigate vaccine uptake in pregnant and non-pregnant women through a sample of young women and consultant gynecologists, along with the potential predisposing and/or enabling factors affecting attitudes to vaccination (knowledge, beliefs, barriers). A cross-sectional study was conducted between June and September 2019, with a sample of 251 women and 14 consultant gynecologists at the Local Health Authority (ASL01) of the Abruzzo Region (Italy), using an anonymous, self-report questionnaire survey. Among the participants, 5.6% of women had received influenza vaccination, 16.4% had received Tdap during pregnancy and only 1.2% had received both vaccines. The assessment of the psychometric attitudinal variables has suggested a more positive willingness to receive Tdap than influenza vaccine among women, as the former is considered more important for the maternal and neonatal health. Health care workers have reported vaccine safety concerns, lack of information, and misconceptions about the need for vaccination as barriers to immunization in pregnant women. The results of this study will contribute to defining the goals and strategies to increase vaccine uptake under the current recommendations, through promoting effective training programs for all health care workers involved (gynecologists, obstetricians, public health physicians)