Relationship between unpleasant previous vaccine experience and booster hesitancy : moderating effect of neuroticism

Abstract

The use of vaccination was seen as the solution to eradicating the COVID-19. However, many influences shape societal perceptions of boosters which cause booster hesitancy. Booster hesitancy refers to the reluctance of people to accept the booster vaccine. As such, it is important to understand the booster hesitancy phenomenon so that solutions may be implemented to overcome it. The goal of the present study was to address the relationship between booster hesitancy and unpleasant previous vaccine experience in the context of COVID-19 vaccination. Unpleasant previous vaccine experience was examined from three aspects, namely first hand personal previous vaccine experience and second hand unpleasant previous vaccine experience from direct personal contact and from media. We would further like to examine how neuroticism affects reluctance to receive the booster after experiencing the unpleasant post-vaccine adverse events. For those high on neuroticism, they are more prone to stress. It is expected that neuroticism has a moderating effect which strengthens the relationship between unpleasant previous experience and booster hesitancy. A total of 453 participants were recruited via convenience sampling for completing the cross-sectional online survey in Qualtrics. Logistic regression, ANOVA and chi-square were conducted. Second hand unpleasant previous vaccine experience from the media was the significant predictor of booster hesitancy while first hand and second hand unpleasant previous vaccine experience from direct personal contact were not found to be significant predictors of booster hesitancy. Neuroticism was not found to moderate the relationship. Limitation and future direction of the study were then discussed