Prosociality and Social Responsibility Were Associated With Intention of COVID-19 Vaccination Among University Students in China.

Yanqiu Yu,Liping Li,Junfeng Zhao,Sitong Luo,Phoenix Kit-Han Mo,Suhua Wang,Joseph Tak-Fai Lau,Guohua Zhang,Lijuan Li

doi:10.34172/ijhpm.2021.64

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination is expected to end the pandemic; a high coverage rate is required to meet this end. This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of behavioral intention of free/self-paid COVID-19 vaccination and its associations with prosociality and social responsibility among university students in China. An anonymous online cross-sectional survey was conducted among 6922 university students in five provinces in China during November 1-28, 2020. With informed consent, participants filled out an online survey link distributed to them via WeChat study groups. The response rate was 72.3%. The prevalence of behavioral intentions of free COVID-19 vaccination was 78.1%, but it dropped to 57.7% if the COVID-19 vaccination involved self-payment (400 RMB; around 42 USD). After adjusting for background factors, prosociality (free vaccination: adjusted odds ratio [ORa] = 1.10, 95% CI: 1.09-1.12; self-paid vaccination: ORa = 1.08, 95% CI: 1.07-1.09) and social responsibility (free vaccination: ORa = 1.17, 95% CI: 1.14-1.19; self-paid vaccination: ORa = 1.13, 95% CI: 1.11-1.14) were positively associated with the two variables of COVID-19 vaccination intention. The present study demonstrated the positive effects of prosociality and social responsibility on the intention of COVID-19 vaccination. Accordingly, modification of prosociality and social responsibility can potentially improve COVID-19 vaccination. Future longitudinal and intervention studies are warranted to confirm such associations across populations and countries.

Highlights

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination is certainly the most promising preventive measure to terminate the extremely devastating pandemic
This study investigated the prevalence of behavioral intention of free and self-paid COVID-19 vaccination and their associations with prosociality and social responsibility among university students in mainland China
As COVID-19 vaccination has just been approved for use in a number of countries and had not been approved and rolled out at the time of the survey, this study looked at behavioral intention of COVID-19 vaccination

Summary

Introduction

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination is certainly the most promising preventive measure to terminate the extremely devastating pandemic. A high population coverage rate of >75% would be required to achieve herd immunity against COVID-19, even if the vaccine was 80% effective.[1] there is a strong global concern about COVID-19 vaccination hesitancy.[2] The prevalence of intention of COVID-19 vaccination in the general population varied substantially across regions (38.0%-93.3%).[3,4,5,6,7] Such hesitations may be attributed to the prime concern about safety, which might have been amplified by the wide-spread lack of trust and anti-vaccine attitudes.[8,9] It is warranted to understand the factors of COVID-19 vaccination In literature, such factors were mostly confined to socio-demographics (eg, age and gender), cognitions (eg, perceived risk and perceived efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines), and trust toward science and COVID-19-related information.[3,4,5].

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