H1N1 Influenza Pandemic in Italy Revisited: Has the Willingness to Get Vaccinated Suffered in the Long Run?

Ludolph, Ramona; Nobile, Marta; Hartung, Uwe; Castaldi, Silvana; Schulz, Peter J.

There are several limitations to this study. First, the sample is not representative and therefore no generalization to the whole population of Italy is possible. Further, one cannot draw conclusions about people's willingness to get vaccinated based on other variables than the ones studied such as attitudinal or psychological ones. Nevertheless, this is the first study to examine possible secondary effects of the H1N1 pandemic on future willingness to get vaccinated in a European population as Schwarzinger et al.'s study was conducted in Australia. 15 Besides, it would have been fruitful to include more participants in the study who were vaccinated against the H1N1 virus. As only four respondents indicated that they had received the vaccine, the results building on this variable have to be interpreted with caution. However, the low number of vaccinated participants is in line with the generally low H1N1-vaccination rates in Italy and worldwide and thus reflects the actual situation. On the other hand, caution is also called for with regard to the high willingness to get vaccinated next time as respondents might possibly have overestimated their intention due to a mixture of social desirability and a sponsorship effect, the latter having been produced by the fact that the face-toface interviews were conducted by physicians. As this study could only investigate the effects of the past pandemic on the willingness to get vaccinated during a future hypothetical one it would be interesting to compare our findings with data collected by the time a novel influenza pandemic actually hits.