What leads to vaccine compliance? Evidence from healthcare workers in Italy

Vaccine hesitancy, which is delay in acceptance or refusal of safe vaccines despite availability of vaccination services, is a problematic phenomenon for vaccination campaigns. This was made particularly clear during the recent COVID-19 pandemic, where the role of HealthCare Workers (HCW) was particularly relevant. We presented an online questionnaire to 5283 Italian HCW to investigate the role played by the personal reasons and the potential perception of risk, the social environment, and the vaccine efficacy and safety perception in affecting HCW willingness to adhere to the vaccination campaign. First, we discovered that those who took the vaccine to minimize health risk tended to vaccinate earlier, whereas those who did it due to a sense of social pressure received it later. Second, that those who indicated acquaintances as more important than the workplace in their vaccination choice showed more altruistic-related reasons to vaccinate, and the reverse held true. Third, that regarding two salient features of the vaccine, namely safety and efficacy, only the former was playing a role in the willingness to vaccinate, whereas the latter did not show an impact.