Prevalence and Drivers of COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy among Czech University Students: National Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Background: university students are believed to retain the highest levels of health literacy. They are perceived as the opinion leaders within their communities; therefore, their health-related beliefs and attitudes are deemed important for public health campaigns. This study aimed to investigate the COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy drivers among university students in the Czech Republic. Methods: a cross-sectional study using a self-administered questionnaire was carried out in the weeks before the unrestricted vaccine deployment to Czech adults. The questionnaire had 21 multiple-choice items stratified in 4 categories; demographic characteristics, COVID-19-related anamnesis and influenza vaccine experience, attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccination, and the possible drivers of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy suggested by the WHO-SAGE. Results: out of the 1351 included students, 66.8% were females, 84.5% were Czech nationals, and 40.6% enrolled in healthcare programs. The overall COVID-19 vaccine acceptance level was 73.3%, 19.3% of participants were vaccine-resistant, and only 7.4% were vaccine-hesitant. Trust in the pharmaceutical industry, trust in healthcare providers, and perceived knowledge sufficiency predicted higher odds of vaccine acceptance. In contrast, media and social media, personal beliefs, immunity misconception, previous COVID-19 infection, and suspicions about novel vaccines and the local availability predicted higher odds of vaccine hesitancy. Conclusions: The findings of this study predict a fair probability to achieve community immunity (herd immunity) among the target population group. The primary prevention strategies in the Czech Republic need to be culturally sensitive and inclusive for foreign nationals. As one-quarter of the participating students are dependent on vaccine safety data, this study findings support the call for independent studies evaluating the side effects of COVID-19 vaccines.

Factors associated with acceptance of COVID-19 vaccine among University health sciences students in Northwest Nigeria

“…Moreover, they also provide advocacy and recommendations to the public regarding disease education and prevention. The health literacy of health sciences students could be influenced by several socioeconomic factors, including gender, age, household income, the field and level of study, and history of chronic disease [ 26 ]. Thus, the present study aimed to evaluate the factors associated with COVID-19 vaccine acceptance among health sciences students in Northwest Nigeria.…”

Universal Predictors of Dental Students’ Attitudes towards COVID-19 Vaccination: Machine Learning-Based Approach

“…The COVID-19 mass vaccination strategies followed a priority approach that was suggested by the World Health Organization (WHO) and endorsed by all its member states; therefore, the older adults, healthcare personnel, essential workers, etc., were prioritized to receive COVID-19 vaccines at the expenses of the young adults who had to wait around six months until they were permitted to register for vaccination [8,9]. Mass media and social media play a key role in shaping youth views and attitudes towards health-related issues, including receiving vaccines [10][11][12][13][14][15]. The negative impacts of social media on vaccine acceptance levels were found in the Czech Republic, Palestine, the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States of America (US) [13,[15][16][17].…”

“…Mass media and social media play a key role in shaping youth views and attitudes towards health-related issues, including receiving vaccines [10][11][12][13][14][15]. The negative impacts of social media on vaccine acceptance levels were found in the Czech Republic, Palestine, the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States of America (US) [13,[15][16][17].…”

“…University students are an interesting group for both public health research and interventions because they constitute a special subset of the general youth population that is supposed to retain the highest possible levels of health literacy [15,[18][19][20]. Likewise, studying health-related subjects was found to be a pivotal promoter of health literacy; therefore, healthcare students represent the upper echelon of health literacy among the youth population [20].…”

“…Nonetheless, the attitudes of dental students toward novel vaccines, e.g., human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, were found to be unsatisfactory in the high and middle-income countries due to a lack of knowledge [42][43][44]. Recently, a growing number of studies had been designed to describe the attitudes of healthcare students towards the novel COVID-19 vaccines [11,13,15,[45][46][47][48]. One of the major critiques of these studies is the lack of in-depth analysis of the promoters and barriers of vaccine willingness; therefore, it had been recommended to carry out a deep analysis utilizing machine learning-based approaches for evaluation of the predictors of COVID-19 vaccine-related attitudes [11].…”