Abstract
Countermeasures against the spread of COVID-19 have become an urgent issue in educational settings, where many group activities are necessary. Educators are key to preventing the spread of COVID-19 in educational settings. Infection prevention behavior requires comprehensive and complex measures such as self-restraint. disinfection care, hand washing, wearing masks and recommendation and implementation of vaccination. Improvement in the knowledge, skills, and preventive actions of educators vis-à-vis COVID-19 could allow for the continued provision of educational services while ensuring safety in educational settings. Therefore, the objective of this study was to explore the knowledge and preventive actions of educators regarding COVID-19 and vaccination awareness to provide appropriate support for educators. The study used data collected from 1,000 Japanese educators in January 2021 when the third wave of viral infections spread. Online surveys and multivariate linear regression analysis were used to determine age and whether respondents were being cared for by a doctor. We investigated the effects of factors on educators’ willingness to be vaccinated and changes in their behavior. This study found that factors such as age, gender, whether a respondent was under a physician’s care, and health literacy, affected the willingness of educators to receive vaccinations and engage in preventive actions. The study also suggests that the reliability of national government public relations efforts is lower than the reliability of local government public relations and that of information from family physicians, pharmacies, and mass media. It is therefore necessary to reexamine how information is disseminated by the national government and to increase the degree of trust in that information among the public. The findings of the study also revealed the importance of improving the provision of appropriate information and health literacy for the behavior of educators, not only during the initial outbreak, but also during the subsequent period of pandemic life.
Highlights
Outbreaks of novel viral infections, such as COVID-19, has shed light on situations in which the public has no choice but to manage and suppress the spread of infection by restraining and altering their own behaviors, given the unavailability of cures or treatments and uncertain methods of prevention [1,2,3,4]
Survey items investigated in the study were demographic characteristics of educator attributes, such as age, gender, institution of employment, academic background, as well as their knowledge of COVID-19, preventive actions, vaccination intent, the awareness and reliability of medical information sources, and health literacy
This study revealed that age, gender, whether a respondent was under a physician’s care, and health literacy affected certain behaviors of educators, including willingness to undergo vaccination, and take preventive actions
Summary
Outbreaks of novel viral infections, such as COVID-19, has shed light on situations in which the public has no choice but to manage and suppress the spread of infection by restraining and altering their own behaviors, given the unavailability of cures or treatments and uncertain methods of prevention [1,2,3,4]. To control the spread of infections, it is important to facilitate vaccinations for people without symptoms, the research and development of therapeutic agents, and the examination of treatment methods for those affected by the virus. When the spread of the infections began at the end of February 2020, school closures were implemented in Japan. In other countries as well, several researchers have pointed out that mental health problems among students would have increased if schools were to remain closed and schooling from home [17, 18]. While schools have reopened in many countries around the world, some of these schools have formed COVID-19 clusters [19, 20]
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