Preventive measures as a mediating factor between belief in conspiracy theories and vaccination hesitancy among Romanian students: a multi-group analysis comparing students without COVID-19, mild, and severe COVID-19 experiences at the beginning of vaccine availability

Pandemic times were considered one of the most disruptive experiences for the recent history, with large-scale implications. Vaccines became available for supporting people in their fight against the COVID-19 disease. We argue that vaccine adoption has been different depending on beliefs in conspiracy theories taking into account the preventive measures used, if any. Based on data collected from a sample of Romanian students in 2021, we investigate using a multi-group structural equation model to what extent conspiracy beliefs played a role in vaccine hesitancy considering preventive measures as a mediating factor and controlling for income, gender, and age, independently of personal experience with COVID-19. We found a strong relationship between conspiracy beliefs and vaccination hesitancy mediated by the adoption of preventive measures. Believing in conspiracy theories, independent of their medical history of COVID-19, played an important role in their decision to vaccinate. Education-related conspiracy beliefs should take into account their important influence in individual decision to vaccinate, among other related decisions. Our model, which explained 40% of the variance in vaccine hesitancy, brings about an innovative approach of analyzing the connection between the proposed measures in order to reveal difficulties related to vaccination during pandemic times.