IMPORTANCE: Identifying successful strategies to increase COVID-19 vaccination among skilled nursing facility (SNF) residents and staff is integral to preventing future outbreaks in a continually overwhelmed system.
OBJECTIVE: To determine whether a multicomponent vaccine campaign would increase vaccine rates among SNF residents and staff.
DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: This was a cluster randomized trial with a rapid timeline (December 2020-March 2021) coinciding with the Pharmacy Partnership Program (PPP). It included 133 SNFs in 4 health care systems across 16 states: 63 and 70 facilities in the intervention and control arms, respectively, and participants included 7496 long-stay residents (>100 days) and 17?963 staff.
INTERVENTIONS: Multicomponent interventions were introduced at the facility level that included: (1) educational material and electronic messaging for staff; (2) town hall meetings with frontline staff (nurses, nurse aides, dietary, housekeeping); (3) messaging from community leaders; (4) gifts (eg, T-shirts) with socially concerned messaging; (5) use of a specialist to facilitate consent with residents' proxies; and (6) funds for additional COVID-19 testing of staff/residents.
MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: The primary outcomes of this study were the proportion of residents (from electronic medical records) and staff (from facility logs) who received a COVID-19 vaccine (any), examined as 2 separate outcomes. Mixed-effects generalized linear models with a binomial distribution were used to compare outcomes between arms, using intent-to-treat approach. Race was examined as an effect modifier in the resident outcome model.
RESULTS: Most facilities were for-profit (95; 71.4%), and 1973 (26.3%) of residents were Black. Among residents, 82.5% (95% CI, 81.2%-83.7%) were vaccinated in the intervention arm, compared with 79.8% (95% CI, 78.5%-81.0%) in the usual care arm (marginal difference 0.8%; 95% CI, -1.9% to 3.7%). Among staff, 49.5% (95% CI, 48.4%-50.6%) were vaccinated in the intervention arm, compared with 47.9% (95% CI, 46.9%-48.9%) in usual care arm (marginal difference: -0.4%; 95% CI, -4.2% to 3.1%). There was no association of race with the outcome among residents.
CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: A multicomponent vaccine campaign did not have a significant effect on vaccination rates among SNF residents or staff. Among residents, vaccination rates were high. However, half the staff remained unvaccinated despite these efforts. Vaccination campaigns to target SNF staff will likely need to use additional approaches.
TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04732819.
| Discipline Area | Score |
|---|---|
| Physician |  |
| Nurse | |
Nurse rater
This article is interesting. An important variable seems to be missing, namely the education of the nursing staff, to better understand the results.
Nurse rater
A multicomponent Covid-19 vaccine campaign did not have a significant effect on vaccination rates among staff in skilled nursing facilities--half the staff remained unvaccinated. The study took place in the early days of vaccinations (Dec 2020-March 2021) when vaccine hesitance may have been higher than what would be seen now because it was very new to staff in those settings. In fact, new to everyone. It would be interesting to know whether these strategies would be successful now.
Physician rater
This is an example of the value of publishing negative results. It tells us what doesn't work, but doesn't really confirm why. That would be an important next step - what were the barriers?
Physician rater
The comment that social processes, including organizational and community culture, are central to successful vaccine campaigns is an important information that merits attention. However, the conclusion that "A multicomponent vaccine campaign did not have a significant effect on vaccination rates among SNF residents or staff," warrants further investigation. Info-explosion in the pandemic may have influenced healthcare workers for or against the decision to avail themselves of vaccination. It is unclear what factors that influenced staff vaccine uptake were investigated (e.g., information external to SNF providers).
Physician rater
This is a negative study on an important issue. Unfortunately, I feel that the scientific lessons we learn from this issue may be somewhat attenuated by the fact that there are larger political issues at play that may lead to methods failure that might otherwise have succeeded.
, McMaster University