Department of Psychology and Speech-Language Pathology, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.
Department of Clinical Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.
PLoS One. 2024 Jul 30;19(7):e0308159. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0308159. eCollection 2024.
Health communicators are faced with the challenge that people can hesitate vaccines for different reasons. Our aim was to identify and describe the qualities of distinct COVID-19 and influenza vaccine-hesitancy subgroups to facilitate the development of tailored vaccine-hesitancy communication. In two studies, we used agglomerative hierarchical cluster analysis to identify COVID-19 (N = 554) and influenza (N = 539) vaccine-hesitancy subgroups in the general population based on nine vaccine hesitancy-related variables (intent to get vaccinated, perceived vaccine safety, perceived vaccine efficacy, perceived disease threat, perceived vaccination responsibility, perceived vaccination convenience, distrust in authorities, conspiracy mentality, and reliance on anecdotal testimonies). We identified and described six distinct COVID-19 vaccine-hesitancy subgroups (the Vaccination Positive, the Ambivalent, the Fearing Skeptic, the Unconvinced, the Constrained Skeptic, and the Vaccination Opponent), and three influenza vaccine-hesitancy subgroups (the Vaccination Positive, the Complacent, and the Vaccination Opponent), with different levels of hesitancy. We discuss the implications of the results for health communicators. Our results shed light on the (dis)similarities between people who hesitate COVID-19 and influenza vaccines and suggest that there is greater variety in hesitancy concerning COVID-19 vaccinations than influenza vaccinations. These findings can be used to design and test tailored vaccination messages.
健康传播者面临着人们因各种原因而对疫苗犹豫不决的挑战。我们的目的是识别和描述不同的 COVID-19 和流感疫苗犹豫亚组的特征，以促进有针对性的疫苗犹豫沟通的发展。在两项研究中，我们使用凝聚层次聚类分析，根据九个与疫苗犹豫相关的变量（接种疫苗的意愿、感知疫苗安全性、感知疫苗有效性、感知疾病威胁、感知接种责任、感知接种便利性、对权威机构的不信任、阴谋心态和依赖传闻证据），在普通人群中识别和描述 COVID-19（N=554）和流感（N=539）疫苗犹豫亚组。我们确定并描述了六个不同的 COVID-19 疫苗犹豫亚组（接种积极组、犹豫不决组、恐惧怀疑组、未被说服组、受限怀疑组和接种反对组）和三个流感疫苗犹豫亚组（接种积极组、自满组和接种反对组），它们具有不同程度的犹豫。我们讨论了这些结果对健康传播者的意义。我们的结果揭示了人们对 COVID-19 和流感疫苗犹豫不决的（相似和）不同之处，并表明人们对 COVID-19 疫苗接种的犹豫比流感疫苗接种更为多样化。这些发现可以用于设计和测试有针对性的疫苗接种信息。
