Knowledge, Attitudes, and Educational Gaps About Vaccination in Chinese Medical Students and Residents: A Pilot Study from a Single Tertiary Referral Center.

Objective: Physicians play a key role in vaccination advocacy. To explore potential educational gaps, we surveyed the knowledge and opinions on vaccination, as well as their own vaccination status, among Chinese medical students and residents in a single medical institute.

Methods: We recruited sixth- and seventh-year medical students and internal medicine residents to carry out this investigation. All participants were given a questionnaire to fill out.

Results: In total, 118 responses from medical students (n=75) and residents (n=43) were analyzed. Thus, 58.5% of participants (69/118) declared that they had enough knowledge, and 68.6% (81/118) wanted to learn more. The average knowledge score was 15.3±2.4 (the full mark was 21 points), while the average accuracy rate was 72.9%. Most respondents agreed that vaccines are useful and that the national vaccination program is effective. Although nearly all participants supported the importance of revaccination, only 48.3% had actually received boosters. There were no significant differences in knowledge and general attitude between medical students and residents. Vaccine uptake in childhood was good. With regard to the 12 vaccines other than the national standard immunization program, the most frequently declared vaccine was against coronavirus disease 2019 (89.8%), while 55.1% had received the human papillomavirus vaccine. There were no significant differences in vaccination coverage between medical students and residents, except for varicella vaccine (40% in medical students vs 18.6% in residents, p=0.017).

Conclusion: A large proportion of medical students and residents in this tertiary referral center exhibited attitudes that favored vaccine acceptance. However, there are certain gaps in their knowledge of and attitudes toward vaccination, which could be addressed by implementing a formal standardized vaccine curriculum.