Expanding Protection Motivation Theory to explain vaccine uptake among United Kingdom and Taiwan populations

Po-Ching Huang; I-Hua Chen; Luca Barlassina; James R Turner; Felipe Carvalho; Alvaro Martinez-Perez; Jilly Gibson-Miller; Miklós Kürthy; Kuo-Hsin Lee; Mark D Griffiths; Chung-Ying Lin

doi:10.1080/21645515.2023.2211319

Expanding Protection Motivation Theory to explain vaccine uptake among United Kingdom and Taiwan populations

Hum Vaccin Immunother. 2023 Dec 31;19(1):2211319. doi: 10.1080/21645515.2023.2211319. Epub 2023 May 22.

Authors

Po-Ching Huang¹, I-Hua Chen², Luca Barlassina³, James R Turner³, Felipe Carvalho⁴, Alvaro Martinez-Perez⁵, Jilly Gibson-Miller⁶, Miklós Kürthy³, Kuo-Hsin Lee^{7

8}, Mark D Griffiths⁹, Chung-Ying Lin^{1

10

11

12}

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Allied Health Sciences, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan.
² Chinese Academy of Education Big Data, Qufu Normal University, Qufu, China.
³ Department of Philosophy, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
⁴ Department of Philosophy, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
⁵ Department of Sociological Studies, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
⁶ Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
⁷ Department of Emergency Medicine, E-Da Dachang Hospital, I-Shou University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
⁸ School of Medicine, College of Medicine, I-Shou University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
⁹ International Gaming Research Unit, Psychology Department, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK.
¹⁰ Biostatistics Consulting Center, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan.
¹¹ Department of Public Health, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan.
¹² Department of Occupational Therapy, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan.

Abstract

Vaccination can sufficiently ameliorate the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19). Investigating what factors influence vaccine uptake may benefit ongoing vaccination efforts (e.g. booster injections, annual vaccination). The present study expanded Protection Motivation Theory with possible factors including perceived knowledge, adaptive responses, and maladaptive responses to develop a proposed model investigating vaccine uptake among United Kingdom (UK) and Taiwan (TW) populations. An online survey collected responses from UK (n = 751) and TW (n = 1052) participants (August to September, 2022). The results of structural equation modeling (SEM) showed that perceived knowledge was significantly associated with coping appraisal in both samples (standardized coefficient [β] = 0.941 and 0.898; p < .001). Coping appraisal was correlated with vaccine uptake only in the TW sample (β = 0.319, p < .05). Multigroup analysis showed there were significant differences between the path coefficients of perceived knowledge to coping and threat appraisals (p < .001), coping appraisal to adaptive and maladaptive responses (p < .001), as well as threat appraisal to adaptive response (p < .001). Such knowledge may improve vaccine uptake in Taiwan. The potential factors for the UK population require further investigation.

Keywords: COVID-19; Protection Motivation Theory; coping appraisal; knowledge; vaccination.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Adaptation, Psychological
COVID-19* / prevention & control
Humans
Motivation
Taiwan
Vaccines*

Substances

Vaccines

Grants and funding

The present study was supported in part by a research grant from the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan (MOST109-2327-B-006-005; MOST111-2321-B-006-009), the National Science and Technology Council, Taiwan (NSTC 112-2321-B-006-008-), the WUN Research Development Fund (RDF) 2021 and the Higher Education Sprout Project, the Ministry of Education at the Headquarters of University Advancement at the National Cheng Kung University (NCKU).