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      National attitudes of medical students towards mandating the COVID-19 vaccine and its association with knowledge of the vaccine

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      PLoS ONE
      Public Library of Science

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          Abstract

          Background

          With the introduction of the novel COVID-19 vaccine, public hesitancy is being experienced with many turning to healthcare professionals for advice. As future physicians, medical students play a critical role in the public’s view of the vaccine.

          Objectives

          To determine the attitude of U.S. medical students toward mandating the COVID-19 vaccine to healthcare workers and patients, as well as whether their knowledge of the vaccine plays a role in their view.

          Methods

          The authors emailed a survey link to all U.S. medical schools with request to distribute it to their medical students. The survey remained open from 02/09/2021 to 03/15/2021 and included questions to determine the attitude of the medical students toward recommending the COVID-19 vaccine, and general knowledge questions about the vaccine. Chi square, Fisher’s exact test, and linear regression were conducted to determine associations between willingness to recommend the COVID-19 vaccine and general knowledge of the vaccine.

          Results

          Among the 1,899 responses from medical students representing 151 U.S. medical schools, 57.82% approved of making the COVID-19 vaccine mandatory to healthcare workers, and 16.27% approved of making it mandatory to patients. Additionally, those who tested most knowledgeable of the vaccine were less likely to approve of making the vaccine mandatory for patients (66.67% vs. 72.70). Those that tested most knowledgeable were also more likely to personally receive the vaccine (72.35% vs 62.99%) as opposed to those that tested the least knowledgeable who were less willing to personally receive the vaccine (4.12% vs 14.17%).

          Conclusions

          The data revealed that a slight majority of medical students support a vaccine mandate toward healthcare workers while a minority of medical students support a vaccine mandate toward healthcare workers. Additionally, medical students that had relatively high knowledge of the vaccine correlated with not approving of making the vaccine mandatory for patients. However increased knowledge of the vaccine correlated with increased willingness to personally receive the vaccine.

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          Most cited references9

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          Vaccine hesitancy: the next challenge in the fight against COVID-19

          Vaccine hesitancy remains a barrier to full population inoculation against highly infectious diseases. Coincident with the rapid developments of COVID-19 vaccines globally, concerns about the safety of such a vaccine could contribute to vaccine hesitancy. We analyzed 1941 anonymous questionnaires completed by healthcare workers and members of the general Israeli population, regarding acceptance of a potential COVID-19 vaccine. Our results indicate that healthcare staff involved in the care of COVID-19 positive patients, and individuals considering themselves at risk of disease, were more likely to self-report acquiescence to COVID-19 vaccination if and when available. In contrast, parents, nurses, and medical workers not caring for SARS-CoV-2 positive patients expressed higher levels of vaccine hesitancy. Interventional educational campaigns targeted towards populations at risk of vaccine hesitancy are therefore urgently needed to combat misinformation and avoid low inoculation rates.
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            Vaccine hesitancy and healthcare providers.

            While most people vaccinate according to the recommended schedule, this success is challenged by individuals and groups who delay or refuse vaccines. The aim of this article is to review studies on vaccine hesitancy among healthcare providers (HCPs), and the influences of their own vaccine confidence and vaccination behaviour on their vaccination recommendations to others. The search strategy was developed in Medline and then adapted across several multidisciplinary mainstream databases including Embase Classic & Embase, and PschInfo. All foreign language articles were included if the abstract was available in English. A total of 185 articles were included in the literature review. 66% studied the vaccine hesitancy among HCPs, 17% analysed concerns, attitudes and/or behaviour of HCPs towards vaccinating others, and 9% were about evaluating intervention(s). Overall, knowledge about particular vaccines, their efficacy and safety, helped to build HCPs own confidence in vaccines and their willingness to recommend vaccines to others. The importance of societal endorsement and support from colleagues was also reported. In the face of emerging vaccine hesitancy, HCPs still remain the most trusted advisor and influencer of vaccination decisions. The capacity and confidence of HCPs, though, are stretched as they are faced with time constraints, increased workload and limited resources, and often have inadequate information or training support to address parents' questions. Overall, HCPs need more support to manage the quickly evolving vaccine environment as well as changing public, especially those who are reluctant or refuse vaccination. Some recommended strategies included strengthening trust between HCPs, health authorities and policymakers, through more shared involvement in the establishment of vaccine recommendations.
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              COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among medical students

              ABSTRACT Background Medical students are among the group of frontline healthcare providers likely to be exposed to COVID-19 patients. It is important to achieve high COVID-19 vaccination coverage rates in this group as soon as a vaccine is available. As future healthcare providers, they will be entrusted with providing vaccine recommendations and counseling vaccine-hesitant patients. Methods This project used self-report to assess vaccine hesitancy and acceptance among medical students towards the novel COVID-19 vaccine. Results Nearly all participants had positive attitudes towards vaccines and agreed they would likely be exposed to COVID-19; however, only 53% indicated they would participate in a COVID-19 vaccine trial and 23% were unwilling to take a COVID-19 vaccine immediately upon FDA approval. Students willing to immediately take the vaccine were more likely to trust public health experts, have fewer concerns about side effects and agree with vaccine mandates (P < 0.05). Concern for serious side effects was independently predictive of lower odds of intent to participate in a COVID-19 vaccine trial (AOR = 0.41, P = 0.01). Conclusion This is the first study to evaluate COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among US medical students and highlights the need for an educational curriculum about the safety and effectiveness to promote uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Role: ConceptualizationRole: Data curationRole: Formal analysisRole: InvestigationRole: MethodologyRole: Writing – original draftRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: InvestigationRole: VisualizationRole: Writing – original draftRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: ConceptualizationRole: InvestigationRole: SupervisionRole: Writing – original draftRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: Editor
                Journal
                PLoS One
                PLoS One
                plos
                PLoS ONE
                Public Library of Science (San Francisco, CA USA )
                1932-6203
                22 December 2021
                2021
                22 December 2021
                : 16
                : 12
                : e0260898
                Affiliations
                [1 ] University of South Carolina School of Medicine, Columbia, South Carolina, United States of America
                [2 ] Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, University of South Carolina School of Medicine, Columbia, South Carolina, United States of America
                Harper University Hospital, UNITED STATES
                Author notes

                Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

                ‡ These authors also contributed equally to this work

                Author information
                https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1796-4805
                Article
                PONE-D-21-28023
                10.1371/journal.pone.0260898
                8694456
                34936665
                94df0367-f603-4c5c-994d-730f25f8a5b7
                © 2021 Mayan et al

                This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

                History
                : 29 August 2021
                : 18 November 2021
                Page count
                Figures: 1, Tables: 3, Pages: 10
                Funding
                The authors received no specific funding for this work.
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