Introduction: Vaccine hesitancy (VH), delay in acceptance, and/or refusal to vaccinate is influenced by complacency, confidence, unmet safety, and efficacy concerns. A survey was conducted among U.S. healthcare students to identify factors contributing to COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy.
Methods: The World Health Organization 2014 vaccine hesitancy guidelines informed development of a 37-item survey. This cross-sectional survey was distributed to students in 10 randomly selected nursing, pharmacy, and medical programs. Descriptive statistics and logistic regression were used to identify factors contributing to COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy.
Results: Of the 902 participants who started the survey, 398 completed all COVID-19 questions. Survey respondents were primarily from private schools (84%) and consisted of medical students (49%), female (71%), and millennials (57%). Students believed COVID-19 vaccine was important and protection of vulnerable communities more important than individual protection. Students in general agreed getting the vaccine was necessary to protect others (school and healthcare facilities) (77.4%); only one-third (33.7%) disagreed that they planned to wait and want to see how vaccine affected others before receiving it. Logistic regression results suggest significant differences based on program and political affiliation.
Conclusions: Engagement of healthcare students may help reach student peers who are vaccine hesitant and help reduce the spread of COVID-19.