Knowledge and Attitude of Healthcare Workers and the Public Regarding the COVID 19 Pandemic: An Original Research

Abstract

Introduction: Vaccination is one of the effective measures to prevent COVID-19, but the vaccination acceptance varies across countries and populations. Hence we aim to investigate nursing students' knowledge, attitudes and willingness to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, and the influencing factors.

Material and methods: We conducted a cross-sectional survey of nursing students via online questionnaires in March 2021. Descriptive statistics, independent sample t tests/one-way ANOVA (normal distribution), Mann-Whitney U tests/Kruskal-Wallis H tests (skewness distribution) and multivariate linear regression were performed.

Results: The score rate of attitude, knowledge and vaccination willingness were 70.07%, 80.70% and 84.38% respectively. Attitude was significantly influenced by family economic conditions and whether a family member had been vaccinated. The main factors influencing knowledge were gender, grade and academic background. In terms of willingness, gender, academic background, visits to risk areas, whether family members were vaccinated, and whether they had side effects were significant influencing factors.

Conclusions: The vaccine acceptance of nursing students was fair. Greater focus needed to be placed on the males, those of younger age, with a science background, and having low grades, as well as on students whose family members had not received the COVID-19 vaccine or had side effects from the vaccine. Targeted intervention strategies were recommended to improve vaccination rates.