China has the world’s highest number of tetanus cases, but little study has been conducted to evaluate doctors’ knowledge and practices in tetanus prophylaxis, particularly tetanus vaccine. To that aim, the study performed a pilot research on 197 emergency physicians utilizing a hybrid of web-based and paper-based surveys. Except for the proportion of doctors who had a tetanus booster in the previous ten years and the replies to question 11, there was no difference between the two groups. Surprisingly, only 28.9 percent of doctors had formal tetanus immunization training, and only 21.3 percent had had a tetanus vaccination booster in the previous ten years. Furthermore, only 14.2 percent of respondents verified that the tetanus vaccination was available in their respective institutions. Finally, for questions 11–15, the right rates and Tetanus-immune-globulin (TIG)-only option rates were inadequate.
Findings revealed that the majority of emergency physicians’ knowledge and practices deviated from the guidelines of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP): 1) Using TIG alone instead of vaccination for the majority of trauma patients was an overused therapeutic strategy. 2) The majority of emergency physicians lacked proper tetanus vaccination training and expertise. 3) Not even the emergency physicians were fully inoculated. 4) The tetanus vaccination was only accessible in a few of the institutions where the respondents worked. The study’s findings indicate that there is an urgent need to remedy this grave condition.
Reference: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21645515.2019.1653745
