Barriers and facilitators to COVID-19 vaccine uptake among Australian health professional students during the pandemic: a nationwide study

Lisa Chen; Roslyn Prichard; Matt Mason; Marion Tower; Peta-Anne Zimmerman; Vanessa Sparke; Janice Layh; Ahmed   M Mehdi; Frances Lin

doi:10.1057/s41271-023-00422-9

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Barriers and facilitators to COVID-19 vaccine uptake among Australian health professional students during the pandemic: a nationwide study

Journal article

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Barriers and facilitators to COVID-19 vaccine uptake among Australian health professional students during the pandemic: a nationwide study

Lisa Chen, Roslyn Prichard, Matt Mason, Marion Tower, Peta-Anne Zimmerman, Vanessa Sparke, Janice Layh, Ahmed M Mehdi and Frances Lin

Journal of Public Health Policy, Vol.44, pp.400-414

2023

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41271-023-00422-9

PMCID: PMC10485127

PMID: 37330562

Appears in COVID-19 Research

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Abstract

COVID-19

Health professional students

Risk perception

Vaccine hesitancy

Vaccine uptake

Using a cross-sectional online survey we investigated knowledge, attitudes, and risk perception about COVID-19 vaccination and identified factors influencing vaccine uptake among Australian health professional students from October 2021 to Janu-ary 2022. We analysed data from 1114 health professional students from 17 Australian universities. Most participants were enrolled in nursing programs (n = 958, 86.8%), and 91.6% (n = 858) of the participants received COVID-19 vaccination. Approximately 27% believed COVID-19 was no more serious than seasonal influenza and that they had a low risk of acquiring COVID-19. Nearly 20% disagreed that COVID-19 vaccines in Australia were safe and perceived they were at higher-risk of acquiring COVID infection than the general population. Higher-risk perception viewing vaccination as their professional responsibility, and vaccine mandate strongly predicted vaccination behaviour. Participants consider COVID-19 information from health professionals, government websites, and World Health Organization as the most trusted information sources. The findings highlight that healthcare decision-makers and university administrators need to monitor students' hesitancy with vaccination to improve students' promotion of the vaccination to the general population.

Details

Title: Barriers and facilitators to COVID-19 vaccine uptake among Australian health professional students during the pandemic: a nationwide study
Authors: Lisa Chen (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Health - Nursing
Roslyn Prichard (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Health - Nursing
Matt Mason (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Health - Nursing
Marion Tower (Author) - Griffith University
Peta-Anne Zimmerman (Author) - Griffith University
Vanessa Sparke (Author) - James Cook University
Janice Layh (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Health - Nursing
Ahmed M Mehdi (Author) - QCIF
Frances Lin (Corresponding Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Health - Nursing
Publication details: Journal of Public Health Policy, Vol.44, pp.400-414
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Ltd.
Date published: 2023
DOI: 10.1057/s41271-023-00422-9
ISSN: 1745-655X
PMID: 37330562; PMC10485127
Copyright note: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Organisation Unit: Australian Centre for Pacific Islands Research; School of Health - Nursing; University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland; School of Health - Midwifery
Language: English
Record Identifier: 99735295202621
Output Type: Journal article

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Collaboration types: Domestic collaboration
Web Of Science research areas: Health Care Sciences & Services; Health Policy & Services; Public, Environmental & Occupational Health