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Background: Online program targeting nursing students nationwide (Nursing Initiative Promoting Immunization Training (NIP-IT.org). Voluntary poll with three questions about how nurses and nursing students view vaccinations and risks.
Objectives: Understanding how users of NIP-IT.org view vaccines and risks associated with getting diseases helps determine future learning needs.
Methods: Poll was voluntary with about 3,500 users out of 10,000 NIP-It.org users answering questions. Poll took place at end of first module. Poll included three questions: 1) Do you believe vaccinations against vaccine preventable diseases should be required?, 2) How likely do you think it is that the U.S. will have a serious epidemic of a vaccine preventable disease in the next few years?, and 3) Which statement best describes your beliefs about active immunity?
Results: Most participants answered “yes” to vaccines being required (88% (n=3,103)). Question 2 results included “Likely” as the highest rated answer (48%, n=1675), followed by “Unlikely” (39%, n=1360), then “Highly unlikely” (7%, n=256), and “Highly likely” as the lowest rated answer (6%, n=228). Question 3 results showed 59% (n=2092) agreed, “It is better to take the vaccine when available than to get the disease”, and 33% (n=1174) agreed, “The risks of taking the vaccine are less than the risks of complications if I get the disease”.
Conclusions: Those taking this survey overwhelmingly think that vaccines should be required and that active immunity is very important. However, responses are somewhat divided to Question 2 between those that think an outbreak may occur in the United States (“Likely” was highest rated answer (48%, n=1675) and “Highly likely” lowest rated answer (6%, n=228)) and those that think an outbreak may not occur (“Unlikely” (39%, n=1360) and “Highly unlikely” (7%, n=256)). Poll took place at end of the first module and these responses may have been influenced by the material presented in that module.