ORIGINAL ARTICLE   

Gazzetta Medica Italiana - Archivio per le Scienze Mediche 2020 December;179(12):650-6

DOI: 10.23736/S0393-3660.19.04188-3

Copyright © 2019 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

lingua: Inglese

Health Sciences students’ immunization behavior: differences among Italian universities

Giulia DALLAGIACOMA ¹, Sara DE NITTO ², Pasquale STEFANIZZI ², Sandro PROVENZANO ³ ✉, Omar E. SANTANGELO ³, Alessandro CUDA ¹, Leandro GENTILE ¹, Giuseppe FERRUCCI ⁴, Vincenza GIANFREDI ^{5, 6}

¹ Department of Public Health, Experimental and Forensic Medicine, Post-Graduate School of Hygiene and Preventive Medicine, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy; ² Department of Biomedical Science and Human Oncology, Aldo Moro University, Bari, Italy; ³ Department of Maternal-Infant and Health Promotion, Faculty of Internal Medicine and Specialization of Excellence, G. D’Alessandro University Hospital, Palermo, Italy; ⁴ Department of Medicine, Surgery and Dentistry, Scuola Medica Salernitana, University of Salerno, Salerno, Italy; ⁵ Department of Experimental Medicine, Post-Graduate School of Hygiene and Preventive Medicine, University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy; ⁶ School of Medicine, Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan, Italy

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to evaluate the knowledge and attitude of Health Sciences students towards vaccinations, investigating the differences that may exist in different Italian Universities.
METHODS: It was a multicenter cross-sectional survey, using a validated on-line questionnaire. A multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed in order to evaluate the association between geographical distribution and vaccination behavior.
RESULTS: A collection of 3131 questionnaires was made in order to show that students from the seven northernmost Italian Universities tended to be more satisfied with their knowledge on vaccinations (aOR 0.82), but also that they were less likely to recommended it to patients, family members, general population (aOR 0.69) or to other healthcare workers (aOR 0.72). Nevertheless, the study showed that they were more likely to be in favor of the possible introduction of mandatory vaccinations for healthcare workers (aOR 3.73), compared to students from the seven southernmost Italian Universities.
CONCLUSIONS: This study highlighted the importance of education and the differences that existed on this issue among Italian students, and the need to establish a core curriculum of Public Health that is common to all Italian Universities.

KEY WORDS: Vaccines; Health personnel; Students; Cross-sectional studies; Spatial analysis