Original Article Willingness to Receive the Influenza A(H1N1) Vaccine and its Determinants among University Students during the 2009 Outbreak in Turkey

Objective: The study aimed to determine the willingness to receive the Influenza A(H1N1) vaccine and its determinants in a large group of university students. Materials and Methods: This is a self-administered questionnairre based cross-sectional study. Students being educated at health and non-health faculties were invited to participate in this attitude survey. Results: A total of 974 students were included in the study, of whom 51.3 % (n=500) were in health related faculties. The rate of willingness to receive the Influenza A(H1N1) vaccine was 11.9 and 7.5 % for health and non-health groups, respectively (p<0.05). For the health group, having been vaccined with seasonal influenza was a significant de-terminant of being willingness to receive the Influenza A(H1N1) vac-cine (O.R [95 % C.I.]), (O.R: 2.9 [1.5-5.6]) and to believe that the Influ-enza A(H1N1) vaccine prevents swine flu (O.R: 1.7 [1.09-2.8]). For the non-health group, the only determinant was to believe that Influenza A(H1N1) vaccine prevents from swine flu (O.R: 19.1 [5.7-64.1]) which found to be affected by confusing news in media. Conclusion: The public health professionals who will organize the efforts to improve the acceptability of Influenza A vaccines during influenza outbreaks should try to increase the vaccination rates of seasonal influenza. Information provided by the media should be or-ganized in order not to cause fear and confusion, which was shown to decrease willingness and belief in the Influenza A(H1N1) vaccine