Aim:

Vaccination against influenza, pneumococcal disease, herpes zoster and tetanus-diphtheria-acellular pertussis (Tdap) is recommended for older adults. Data on vaccination rates in older adults are limited for our country. We aimed to investigate the prevalence of vaccination in community-dwelling older adults.

Methods:

Patients >= 65 years admitted to Dr. Ersin Arslan Research and Training Hospital geriatric outpatient clinic between September 2017 and May 2018 in Gaziantep were included. Demographic data and number of medicines were recorded. Frailty was assessed by the FRAIL scale. The patients were asked about their vaccination status against pneumococcal disease (conjugate vaccine in any period of life, polysaccharide vaccine in the past five years), influenza virus (for current year) and Tdap (in the past 10 years).

Results:

A total of 268 patients with the mean age of 76.7±7.2 years were included. Two hundred and four (76.1%) were female and 64 (23.9%) were male. The median number of drugs was 4 (0-16). Twenty one (7.8%) were robust and the remaining subjects were frail or prefrail. The prevalence of influenza vaccination was 8.2% (n=22) and pneumococcal vaccination was 0.7% (n=2, polysaccharide vaccine). There were no patients with herpes zoster or Tdap vaccines.

Conclusion:

In our study, we observed quite lower vaccination prevalence in older adults. Reporting vaccination rates in older adults may help draw health professionals’ attention to this issue, thereby increase vaccination rates.

Keywords: Older adults, vaccination, influenza, pneumococcal