Health care professionals’ preference for a fully liquid, ready-to-use hexavalent vaccine in Spain

•Biosafety devices are needed to safely administer vaccines.•Use of “ready-to-use” vaccines can avoid biological accidents.•Majority of nurses showed concerns about using lyophilized vaccines. Vaccination is an effective health intervention for the prevention of infectious diseases. This study aims to evaluate the response provided by nurses toward the use of ready-to-use (RTU) formulations of hexavalent vaccines and measures to prevent errors during the vaccination process. This observational, descriptive, cross-sectional study took place from March to May 2018. It included 201 interviews with nurses from health centers in Madrid (70), Murcia (59), and Andalusia (72), who had administered RTU vaccines in the last 12 months. Approximately 91.6% of nurses provided a positive feedback for the use of RTU vaccines. The most significant concerns experienced by nurses were during the preparation and administration of vaccines; 84.1% versus 18.9% of nurses felt that the risk of making mistakes was lower while using RTU vaccines compared with non-reconstituted (lyophilized) vaccines, and 74.1% versus 22.4% of nurses felt ease at preparing RTU vaccines compared with lyophilized vaccines. A total of 66.7% of nurses believed that there were risks associated with the preparation of lyophilized vaccines (administration risk [42.8%] and risk of needle injury [42.3%]). Risk percentages reduced to 4% and 9.5%, respectively, with the use of the RTU vaccines. Therefore, nurses adopted an average of seven steps to reduce the risk of errors. The average time saved during the administration of the vaccines was 1.1 min. In summary, nurses highlighted the need for administering vaccines using RTU formulations for ensuring the safety of the recipients, preventing errors, and saving time during the vaccination process.