Cross-sectional study on COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and determinants in healthcare students: interdisciplinary trainings on vaccination are needed

BACKGROUND: To ensure the success of COVID-19 vaccination, public authorities need to have the support of the entire population and build vaccine confidence. Identifying and understanding the determinants of vaccine acceptance is essential for conducting vaccine strategy. The aim was to estimate vaccine hesitancy among healthcare students in France and to investigate the associated factors. METHODS: A web-based cross-sectional study was conducted in a large French University in greater Paris area, among 4927 healthcare students from the different training courses such as medicine studies, midwifery studies, physiotherapy studies, nurse studies and others health studies. The study was conducted between January 21 and February 8, 2021 based on a questionnaire including 25 single or multiple-choice questions, made using the free software Limesurvey. The link of the questionnaire was distributed to the students by the teachers and the student associations. The SAGE group definition of vaccine hesitancy was used. All estimates were weighted using the gender and training courses category of all healthcare students registered for the 2020–2021 year. Crude and adjusted weighted odds ratio (wOR) and 95% confidence interval (95%CI) were estimated using logistic regression. RESULTS: A total of 1465 healthcare students answered. A proportion of 44.5% (95%CI = [41.7–47.3]) of them were considered as hesitant. Women were more hesitant (50.9, 95%CI = [48.0–53.9]) than men (21.6, 95%CI = [15.2–28.0]). Vaccine hesitancy was significantly associated with gender (wOR = 0.27, 95%CI = [0.18–0.39]) and training courses: medical students were less likely to be hesitant than students in the common and first year of several health studies (wOR = 0.48, 95%CI = [0.33–0.70]) while nursing students were more than 5 times more likely to be hesitant (wOR = 5.20, 95%CI = [3.71–7.28]). Students who did an internship during the epidemic (wOR = 0.53, 95%CI = [0.41–0.69]) and who downloaded the mobile contact-tracing mobile app “TousAntiCovid” (wOR = 0.34, 95%CI = [0.26–0.44]) were significantly less likely to be hesitant. CONCLUSIONS: Overall vaccine hesitancy among healthcare students was high, substantial differences were found between training courses. To reduce these disparities, interdisciplinary lectures on vaccines for all healthcare students may be implemented and evaluated. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12909-022-03343-5.