Moreover, low feelings of personal responsibility to protect people in the environment and strong self-protection motives were associated with having no intention to get vaccinated.

These findings are in contradiction with previous studies that had shown that self-protection is amongst the most often reported facilitating factors of influenza vaccination uptake [10], [18] and [29]. The efforts to improve vaccination uptake of HCP are primarily motivated by the fact that vaccinating HCP can reduce all-cause morbidity and mortality of vulnerable patients [1], [2], [3] and [4]. Therefore, it is important that HCP themselves feel personally responsible to protect their patients through vaccination. Although we found that low feelings of personal responsibility were associated with having no intention to vaccinate, relative to having no clear intention, surprisingly, compound screening assay we did

not find an influence of personal responsibility on high intention to get vaccinated, which let us to investigate a possible mediation effect. Indeed, we found that feelings of personal responsibility did predict high intention, relative to unsure intention, but this effect was mediated by attitude. Our findings suggest that addressing feelings of responsibility might therefore be an important determinant to focus on in changing attitudes. Furthermore, we replicated the finding that HCP who prefer not to get vaccinated because of the fear that the vaccines might cause harm, are more likely to have no intention to get vaccinated. This omission bias had previously been shown to decrease the likelihood of accepting influenza

vaccination [25]. Interestingly, there were many more unique predictors Pazopanib mw of no intention as opposed to being unsure than of high intention to get vaccinated. A possible explanation for this finding is that HCP that have a high intention know exactly why they are willing to get vaccinated, while HCP who have no intention to get vaccinated might not be able to justify their unwillingness and negative feelings as easily and might therefore be more susceptible to agree with the more negative end of the utilized items. Of the HCP who participated in the follow-up, fewer than 20% got vaccinated against only influenza. The vaccination experience of immunizers was generally perceived as positive, with the most often reported side-effect being minor local pain. The reasons that were given by non-immunizers for not getting vaccinated are well-documented inhibiting factors and misconceptions in the literature [18], [19], [20], [21], [22] and [23]. Almost half of the non-immunizers indicated not feeling at risk of getting infected with influenza. Moreover, organizational barriers, doubts about the effectiveness of the vaccine, and fear of adverse effects from the vaccine were reported. Misconceptions included the belief that the vaccine weakens the immune system and the belief that pregnancy is a contraindication for influenza vaccination.