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. 2021 Feb 26;13(3):371.
doi: 10.3390/v13030371.

Attitudes towards Anti-SARS-CoV2 Vaccination among Healthcare Workers: Results from a National Survey in Italy

Francesco Di Gennaro  1 , Rita Murri  2   3 , Francesco Vladimiro Segala  2 , Lorenzo Cerruti  4 , Amina Abdulle  5 , Annalisa Saracino  1 , Davide Fiore Bavaro  1 , Massimo Fantoni  2   3
Affiliations

Attitudes towards Anti-SARS-CoV2 Vaccination among Healthcare Workers: Results from a National Survey in Italy

Francesco Di Gennaro et al. Viruses. .

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has afflicted tens of millions of people, fostering and unprecedent effort in vaccine development and distribution. Healthcare workers (HCW) play a key role in vaccine promotion and patient guidance, and it is likely that hesitancy among this population will have a major impact on the adoption of a successful immunization policy. To investigate HCW attitudes towards anti-severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV2) vaccination, we developed an anonymous online cross-sectional survey. 1723 Italian HCW responded. Overall, 1155 (67%) intended to be vaccinated, while 443 (26%) were not sure and 125 (7%) declared refusal. In multivariate analysis, factors associated with hesitancy were using Facebook as the main information source and being a non-physician HCW, while predictors of acceptance included younger age, being in close contact with high-risk groups and having received flu vaccination during the 2019-2020 season. Reasons for hesitancy included lack of trust in vaccine safety (85%) and receiving little (78%) or conflicting (69%) information about vaccines. According to our results, adequate investment in vaccine education for healthcare personnel appears to be urgently needed, prioritizing non-physicians and information quality spread through social media. We hope that our data could help governments and policy-makers to target communication in the ongoing COVID-19 vaccination campaign.

Keywords: COVID-19; cross-sectional survey; healthcare workers; infectious diseases; vaccine hesitancy.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Attitude towards vaccination against seasonal Flu: comparison between the current (2020–2021) and the last flu season (2019–2020).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Attitude towards vaccination against Sars-CoV-2.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Participants’ opinions on reasons of vaccine hesitancy among the general population.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Perception of 1723 participants towards relevance of vaccinations in the fight against COVID-19.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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