Survey on public awareness, attitudes, and barriers for herpes zoster vaccination in South Korea

Abstract

A cross-sectional study was performed to assess current public awareness of herpes zoster (HZ) and its vaccine, determine the factors that influence people's intention regarding HZ vaccination, and investigate the barriers for vaccination by changing decisions with sequential questions regarding knowledge, cost, and physician's recommendation in the Department of Infectious Diseases, Korea University Guro Hospital, in South Korea, between August 23 and September 15 of 2013. Among 603 subjects who completed the survey, 85.7% and 43.6% subjects were aware of HZ and HZ vaccination, respectively. Women, younger age group, those with higher income or higher education levels were more likely to be aware of HZ. Overall, 85.8% of subjects aware of HZ were willing to be vaccinated or vaccinate their parents. The main obstacles for the increased acceptance toward vaccination were the high cost and low perceived risk, which decreased acceptance to 60.2%. However, physician's recommendation reversed 69.5% of the refusal to accept HZ vaccine. These results indicate that expanding public education and physician's recommendations are important factors aimed at increasing HZ vaccine coverage rate.

Relationship between prior knowledge about herpes zoster and the period from onset of the eruption to consultation in patients with herpes zoster

“…Lack of knowledge regarding HZ was thought to be at the root of these responses. Yang et al 11 performed a survey at a university hospital in South Korea and among 603 patients, 85.7% knew about HZ, a very similar result to our study. They also showed that women, younger age, and those with higher income and higher education levels were more likely to know about HZ.…”

“…Lack of knowledge regarding HZ was thought to be at the root of these responses. Yang et al . performed a survey at a university hospital in South Korea and among 603 patients, 85.7% knew about HZ, a very similar result to our study.…”

A cross-sectional study of the knowledge, attitude, and practice of patients aged 50 years or above towards herpes zoster in an out-patient setting

“…Similar studies to assess public awareness of HZ and its vaccination were then carried out. The Herpes Zoster Global Awareness Survey from 22 countries 17 and a knowledge, attitude, and practice study in South Korea 18 were conducted in 2009 and 2015, respectively. Factors promoting or limiting the prevalence of vaccination against HZ were also investigated in the latter study.…”

“…Factors promoting or limiting the prevalence of vaccination against HZ were also investigated in the latter study. 18 There has been limited research conducted in the Hong Kong population to assess the knowledge of and attitudes towards HZ and the practice of vaccination. This study aimed to explore these areas.…”

Varicella and herpes zoster vaccine development: lessons learned

“…Both patient and provider barriers, such as high vaccine cost, complex methods of reimbursement and the requirement for freezer storage, have been suggested to explain the poor uptake of zoster vaccine in the USA [90,91]. A survey of public attitudes to zoster vaccine in South Korea found that high vaccine cost and low perceived risk of zoster were the main obstacles to vaccination, although a physician recommending the vaccine could reverse around 70% of vaccine refusals [92]. …”