The Confidence of Healthcare Professionals to have Tough Conversations with Vaccine-Hesitant Relatives, Friends, and Peers.

Abstract

Vaccine hesitancy is a behavioral phenomenon found among higher educated populations with good access to health services. Public health programs aiming to increase vaccine uptake have shown limited success because of existing concerns about the new vaccine, stronger beliefs in natural lifestyle, or distrust of authorities. Furthermore, healthcare professionals also have safety concerns and consequently may not feel confident recommending the new COVID-19 vaccines to their patients. Nonetheless, healthcare professionals are trusted advisors for vaccine-hesitant individuals. The current empirical study examined the behavioral intention of healthcare professionals to recommend the new COVID-19 vaccines to their social network. The assumption was that higher confidence levels of the healthcare professionals' self-efficacy, normative expectations of others, and personal judgment of their vaccine knowledge would positively relate to their intent to recommend new vaccines to vaccine-hesitant friends, relatives, and peers. Participants were healthcare professionals in countries with good access to healthcare services (N=131). The analysis showed that self-efficacy and normative beliefs are significant predictors of behavioral intention (p .001). Healthcare professionals who participated in this study strongly believed that the benefits of taking a new vaccine outweighed the risks of not knowing the long-term side effects or changes in scientific evidence. They indicated their willingness to speak up and to attempt to overcome their peers' concerns about new vaccines, strengthened by their expectation that peers should show the same vaccination decision. Moreover, healthcare professionals showed a stronger intent to influence and change friends' or relatives' minds with opposing ideas about vaccinations. Findings suggest that future public health programs should target healthcare professionals to increase the vaccine uptake of vaccine-hesitant individuals outside of their practice. An area of interest for further research is the healthcare professional's role in influencing their vaccine-hesitant colleagues.