Planning for influenza vaccination in health care workers: an Intervention Mapping approach

Influenza vaccination uptake by health care workers (HCWs) decreases the transmission of influenza to vulnerable patients and prevents influenza-related absenteeism. Vaccination is effective, easy, and generally without serious side-effects. However, vaccination rates of HCWs are too low. This paper's objective is to apply Intervention Mapping (IM), a planning process for the systematic theory- and evidence-based development of health promotion interventions, to the development of voluntary educational interventions to promote influenza vaccination in HCWs. IM consists of the following six steps: needs assessment, program objectives, methods and applications, program development, planning for program implementation, and planning for program evaluation. Examples are provided to illustrate the activities associated with these steps. It is concluded that applying IM in the (influenza) vaccination field may help the development of effective behavior change interventions.