Determinants of students' willingness to accept a measles-mumps-rubella booster vaccination during a mumps outbreak: a cross-sectional study
Publication year
2015Source
BMC Public Health, 15, (2015), pp. 575ISSN
Publication type
Article / Letter to editor
Display more detailsDisplay less details
Organization
IQ Healthcare
Primary and Community Care
Internal Medicine
Journal title
BMC Public Health
Volume
vol. 15
Page start
p. 575
Subject
Radboudumc 0: Other Research RIHS: Radboud Institute for Health Sciences; Radboudumc 18: Healthcare improvement science RIHS: Radboud Institute for Health Sciences; Radboudumc 4: lnfectious Diseases and Global Health RIHS: Radboud Institute for Health SciencesAbstract
BACKGROUND: Despite high vaccination coverage, a mumps outbreak that affected mainly vaccinated university students and their contacts took place in the Netherlands in the period 2009-2012. We presented university students with a hypothetical case in which we offered them a measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) booster vaccination to control the mumps outbreak. The aim of this study was to get insight into the determinants of university students' willingness to accept this vaccination. METHODS: A questionnaire containing 38 items was developed for the purpose of assessing students' willingness and the psychosocial and social demographic determinants influencing their willingness to accept an MMR booster vaccination. In addition, we explored how organisational characteristics influenced the willingness to be vaccinated. Data were collected at six Dutch universities; a total of 790 students from various faculties were invited to participate. This was a convenience sampling procedure. RESULTS: 687 university students participated (response rate 87.0 %) and 60.4 % of the participants said they would be willing accept the hypothetical MMR booster vaccination. The perceived seriousness of mumps (OR 6.1) was the most important predictor of willingness to accept vaccination. Students who expected the MMR vaccination to be effective and to prevent individual illness and who believed their own vaccination would help stop the epidemic were more likely to be willing than others. The students were more willing to accept vaccination when they perceived that the social norms of significant others and the government favoured vaccination. Organisational characteristics, such as offering vaccination cost free and offering it at the university site, increased students' willingness. CONCLUSION: During a mumps outbreak, university students were generally willing to accept a hypothetical MMR booster vaccination. Risk perception, outcome expectations, perceived social norms, and organisational characteristics should be taken into account in the planning of any vaccination campaign for university students during an outbreak of an infectious disease.
This item appears in the following Collection(s)
- Academic publications [238441]
- Electronic publications [122544]
- Faculty of Medical Sciences [90373]
- Open Access publications [97535]
Upload full text
Use your RU credentials (u/z-number and password) to log in with SURFconext to upload a file for processing by the repository team.