Impact of Psycho-Social Factors, E-health Literacy and Information Access on COVID-19 Vaccination Perceptions and Intentions: Online Survey

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has been associated with an infodemic which impacts on vaccination perceptions and intentions. E-health literacy seems to be the key to searching health information on the web. Age and income level impact vaccine hesitancy and resistance. It is important to know more about the population who are hesitant to get vaccinated in order to develop appropriate and accessible information. We focused on four factors that impact vaccination perceptions and intentions: socio-demographic characteristics (age and education level), e-health literacy and sources of information about COVID-19. An anonymous online survey was completed by 368 participants, who reported their age, level of education, F-eHEALS (the level of e-health literacy), preferred sources of COVID-19 information, and their vaccination perceptions and intentions (vaccine score). The vaccine score is measured by a combination of two preview questionnaires adapted to COVID-19. We first assessed our questionnaire construct on intentions and perceptions of COVID-19 vaccination. We obtained a unidimensional scale that we correlated with other factors and related to clusters (k-means). The results then showed that age, education level, and sources of COVID-19 information (radio, internet and “no channel”) impact vaccination perceptions and intentions. E-health literacy appears to be a co-variant without direct link with vaccination perceptions and intentions but linked to age and sources of COVID-19 information. This study shows how age, education level, sources of COVID-19 information and e-health literacy can impact COVID-19 vaccination perceptions and intentions.