Health Sciences students' immunization behavior : Differences among Italian universities

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to evaluate the knowledge and attitude of Health Sciences students towards vaccinations, investigating the differences that may exist in different Italian Universities. METHODS: It was a multicenter cross-sectional survey, using a validated on-line questionnaire. Amultivariate logistic regression analysis was performed in order to evaluate the association between geographical distribution and vaccination behavior. RESULTS: Acollection of 3131 questionnaires was made in order to show that students from the seven northernmost Italian Universities tended to be more satisfied with their knowledge on vaccinations (aOR 0.82), but also that they were less likely to recommended it to patients, family members, general population (aOR 0.69) or to other healthcare workers (aOR 0.72). Nevertheless, the study showed that they were more likely to be in favor of the possible introduction of mandatory vaccinations for healthcare workers (aOR 3.73), compared to students from the seven southernmost Italian Universities. CONCLUSIONS: This study highlighted the importance of education and the differences that existed on this issue among Italian students, and the need to establish a core curriculum of Public Health that is common to all Italian Universities.