ANTI-VACCINATION ATTITUDE AND VACCINATION INTENTIONS AGAINST COVID-19: A RETROSPECTIVE CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY INVESTIGATING THE ROLE OF MEDIA CONSUMPTION

Objective: The present study explores, retrospectively, the link between antivaccination attitude and vaccination intentions and extends this relationship to the effect of media consumption style on attitude. Method: Generalized linear mixed-models were used to estimate vaccination intentions (related to each of the four available vaccines at the time of the survey) relying on anti-vaccination attitude measured using the Italian translation of the Vaccination Attitude Examination (VAX) scale. Multiple linear regression was used to estimate which media type and which consumption frequency were responsible for variation in the anti-vaccination attitude. Results: Greater anti-vaccination attitude led to lower vaccination intention (b=-8.33, p<.0001) confirming the attitude-intention link. Crucially, consuming vaccination related information via printed press weekly (b=-0.74, p=.0001) or daily (b=-0.96, p<.0001) were the only protective factors against developing antivaccination attitudes. On the other hand, discussing vaccination with the family physician weekly (b=0.66, p=.002) or even daily (b=0.52, p=.026), and actively looking for vaccination related information on specialized websites and blogs every day (b=0.64, t=2.78, p=.006) were risk factors related to increased anti-vaccination attitude. No effects of social media on anti-vaccination attitude were found. Conclusions: The results confirm that vaccination intentions can be linked to the underlying anti-vaccination attitude. Moreover, our results suggest that the web and the blog sphere, but not social media, are the most anti-vaccination fuelling media and that health practitioners engage with the most vaccination-hesitant individuals. Further interventions could leverage these insights to tackle the vaccination hesitancy issue.