Continuity and improvement in the individual preventive attitudes of university students in Turkey even after the Covid-19 vaccination

Abstract

Aim: Vaccination is one of the most important and effective treatments for protecting the health of individuals and preventing infectious diseases. Effective and safe vaccination is very important in the fight against the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19), which is accepted as a global epidemic today. Establishing vaccination strategies and initiating and maintaining vaccination studies are extremely effective in ending the pandemic. In addition, it is known that individual preventive attitudes and their dynamic change are effective in preventing the spread of Covid-19 in society. This study aims to evaluate the changes in individual protective attitudes of Turkish university students post-vaccination compared to pre-vaccination. Material and Methods: In this study, a total of 499 students at Turkish universities completed an online questionnaire about their knowledge of Covid-19 infection and individual preventive attitudes pre-and post-vaccination. Results: 94.8% of the respondents were vaccinated. Most of the students who were expected to have better knowledge about virus transmission gave better self-reports. University students kept a similar number of daily handwashing even after vaccination. However, the rate of wearing masks increased post-vaccination. University students were quite afraid of Covıd-19 infection pre-vaccination, and they were relieved, the feelings of fear were significantly reduced post-vaccination. Conclusion: Turkish university students maintained and improved their protective attitudes after vaccination, so it is hypothesized that individual protective attitudes in addition to vaccination might reduce the potential risk of infection in new variant virus waves.