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Factors That Shape People’s Attitudes towards the COVID-19 Pandemic in Germany—The Influence of MEDIA, Politics and Personal Characteristics

Misinformation that accompanied the current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic led to an impaired risk perception, resulting in the refusal of personal protection measures, as well as a reduced willingness to receive a vaccination. In order to identify factors that might influence people’s attitudes towards COVID-...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: El-Far Cardo, Aida, Kraus, Thomas, Kaifie, Andrea
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8345618/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34360063
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18157772
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author El-Far Cardo, Aida
Kraus, Thomas
Kaifie, Andrea
author_facet El-Far Cardo, Aida
Kraus, Thomas
Kaifie, Andrea
author_sort El-Far Cardo, Aida
collection PubMed
description Misinformation that accompanied the current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic led to an impaired risk perception, resulting in the refusal of personal protection measures, as well as a reduced willingness to receive a vaccination. In order to identify factors that might influence people’s attitudes towards COVID-19 policies and engagement in mitigation measures, we carried out a cross-sectional study in Germany. Altogether, n = 808 participants completed our questionnaire concerning items on demographics, media consumption, risk perception, and trust in health authorities, as well as willingness to receive a vaccination. An overwhelming majority of our participants perceived SARS-CoV-2 as a health threat (85.7%), and almost two thirds (63.5%) mentioned they would get vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 when a vaccination was available. A greater likelihood of vaccination intention was associated with being male (71.5% male vs. 60% female, p < 0.05), left-wing voting, trusting health authorities, using public media as an information source about COVID-19, and, in particular, perceiving COVID-19 as a health threat. A better understanding of factors that contribute to vaccine hesitancy is indispensable in order to eliminate doubts, increase vaccination rates, and create herd immunity, to stop further virus transmission.
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spelling pubmed-83456182021-08-07 Factors That Shape People’s Attitudes towards the COVID-19 Pandemic in Germany—The Influence of MEDIA, Politics and Personal Characteristics El-Far Cardo, Aida Kraus, Thomas Kaifie, Andrea Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Misinformation that accompanied the current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic led to an impaired risk perception, resulting in the refusal of personal protection measures, as well as a reduced willingness to receive a vaccination. In order to identify factors that might influence people’s attitudes towards COVID-19 policies and engagement in mitigation measures, we carried out a cross-sectional study in Germany. Altogether, n = 808 participants completed our questionnaire concerning items on demographics, media consumption, risk perception, and trust in health authorities, as well as willingness to receive a vaccination. An overwhelming majority of our participants perceived SARS-CoV-2 as a health threat (85.7%), and almost two thirds (63.5%) mentioned they would get vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 when a vaccination was available. A greater likelihood of vaccination intention was associated with being male (71.5% male vs. 60% female, p < 0.05), left-wing voting, trusting health authorities, using public media as an information source about COVID-19, and, in particular, perceiving COVID-19 as a health threat. A better understanding of factors that contribute to vaccine hesitancy is indispensable in order to eliminate doubts, increase vaccination rates, and create herd immunity, to stop further virus transmission. MDPI 2021-07-22 /pmc/articles/PMC8345618/ /pubmed/34360063 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18157772 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
El-Far Cardo, Aida
Kraus, Thomas
Kaifie, Andrea
Factors That Shape People’s Attitudes towards the COVID-19 Pandemic in Germany—The Influence of MEDIA, Politics and Personal Characteristics
title Factors That Shape People’s Attitudes towards the COVID-19 Pandemic in Germany—The Influence of MEDIA, Politics and Personal Characteristics
title_full Factors That Shape People’s Attitudes towards the COVID-19 Pandemic in Germany—The Influence of MEDIA, Politics and Personal Characteristics
title_fullStr Factors That Shape People’s Attitudes towards the COVID-19 Pandemic in Germany—The Influence of MEDIA, Politics and Personal Characteristics
title_full_unstemmed Factors That Shape People’s Attitudes towards the COVID-19 Pandemic in Germany—The Influence of MEDIA, Politics and Personal Characteristics
title_short Factors That Shape People’s Attitudes towards the COVID-19 Pandemic in Germany—The Influence of MEDIA, Politics and Personal Characteristics
title_sort factors that shape people’s attitudes towards the covid-19 pandemic in germany—the influence of media, politics and personal characteristics
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8345618/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34360063
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18157772
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