Ching-Fang Wu¹, Shih-Chieh Fang^1,, Ching Ying Huang¹

The success of the vaccination program depends on the coverage rate of the group. However, vaccination decision-making is a complex and dynamic issue that is affected by various factors. In addition to personal knowledge and attitudes about viruses and vaccines, it is also affected by the social environment, such as how the media describe the pandemic changes and the effectiveness of vaccines in news. The main purpose of this study is as follows. (1) To evaluate the decision-making of people in Taiwan to receive the COVID-19 vaccine and its influencing factors when a vaccine is available during the Level 3 alert period. (2) To understand whether the type of public access to COVID-19 information is related to the COVID-19 vaccine decision. This is a cross-sectional study. The study period is from June 30 to July 30, 2021, which is the Level 3 alert period in Taiwan. The subjects of the study are over 18 years old and live in Taiwan. Eventually 1,108 participants were included in the analysis. Chi-square, odds ratio, and binary logistic regression were used for the analysis. Overall, 88.62% of the participants expressed their willingness to receive the vaccine. The results of the study found that the willingness of vaccination has nothing to do with socio-demographic factors. The factors related to the willingness of vaccination are the degree of chronic disease, whether there is currently a vaccination insurance or anti-pandemic insurance, and attitudes and beliefs about COVID-19. For every 1-point increase in the Attitudes and Belief Scale scores, the odds of being willing to be vaccinated increase by 1.7 times. In addition, the type of information source is also related to the vaccination willingness, especially from official information, including the “Press Conference of the Department of Disease Control”, “Ministry of Health and Welfare website, Facebook or LINE”, “President’s Facebook or LINE”, “The Facebook or LINE of the heads of counties and cities.” After controlling the attitudes and beliefs about COVID-19, the degree of chronic disease and the availability of related insurance, participants who came into contact with the CDC press conference were 1.539 times more likely to be willing to be vaccinated than other participants, and those who came into contact with the Facebook or LINE of the heads of counties and cities were 2.401 times more likely than other participants.

COVID-19, vaccination decision, information dissemination, binary logistic regression analysis