The impact of a vaccine mandate and the COVID-19 pandemic on influenza vaccination uptake in Western Australian health care students.

ABSTRACT: Annual influenza vaccination of health care students and workers helps protect themselves and patients from influenza, which has a high disease burden during seasonal peaks in Australia. Health care students are an important cohort whose early attitudes and habits towards influenza vaccination may influence future behaviours. We explored the knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours towards influenza vaccination of health care students in two universities from 2018 to 2020 using convergent mixed methodology. We also assessed the impact of two external events - the introduction of mandatory influenza vaccination for select students in 2019, and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. We found a significant increase in self-reported vaccination uptake between 2018 (73.5%) and 2020 (89.6%), with the mandat

SUBMITTER: Willis GA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9393169 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature