Influences on university students’ intention to receive recommended vaccines: a cross-sectional survey

OBJECTIVES: To explore predictors of university students’ intention to receive a recommended vaccine and the main sources of vaccine-related information accessed by university students. SETTING: Participants were recruited from University College London (UK) in summer 2015. PARTICIPANTS: 177 university students participated. The majority of participants were female (58%), White (68%) and had no religion (58%). Participants were aged 18 to 42 (mean age=23.6). PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: Primary outcome measures included vaccine attitude, perceived subjective norm, perceived behavioural control, perceived self-efficacy, past receipt of recommended childhood vaccines, perceived adverse reaction to past vaccination and needle fear. As a secondary outcome sources of vaccine-related information were assessed. RESULTS: Students classified as high intenders were more likely to have received all recommended childhood vaccines (OR 3.57; 95% CI 1.21 to 10.59; p=0.022), be less afraid of needles (OR 2.44; 95% CI 1.12 to 5.36; p=0.026) and to have lived in the UK until at least the age of 4 compared with those not living in the UK until at least the age of 4 (OR 0.39; 95% CI 0.18 to 0.83; p=0.015) and those who lived both in the UK and elsewhere (OR 0.42; 95% CI 0.04 to 4.06; p=0.424). The multivariable model explained 25.5% of variance in intention to receive a recommended vaccine. The internet was the most commonly reported source of vaccination information. CONCLUSIONS: Findings provide an indication of the factors that may need to be addressed by interventions aiming to increase uptake of recommended vaccines in a university population. Future research is recommended using a prospective cohort design.