title: Survey on public awareness, attitudes, and barriers for herpes zoster vaccination in South Korea.
abstract: A cross-sectional study was performed to assess current public awareness of herpes zoster (HZ) and its vaccine, determine the factors that influence people's intention regarding HZ vaccination, and investigate the barriers for vaccination by changing decisions with sequential questions regarding knowledge, cost, and physician's recommendation in the Department of Infectious Diseases, Korea University Guro Hospital, in South Korea, between August 23 and September 15 of 2013. Among 603 subjects who completed the survey, 85.7% and 43.6% subjects were aware of HZ and HZ vaccination, respectively. Women, younger age group, those with higher income or higher education levels were more likely to be aware of HZ. Overall, 85.8% of subjects aware of HZ were willing to be vaccinated or vaccinate their parents. The main obstacles for the increased acceptance toward vaccination were the high cost and low perceived risk, which decreased acceptance to 60.2%. However, physician's recommendation reversed 69.5% of the refusal to accept HZ vaccine. These results indicate that expanding public education and physician's recommendations are important factors aimed at increasing HZ vaccine coverage rate.
authors.affiliation: a Division of Infectious Diseases; Department of Internal Medicine ; Korea University College of Medicine ; Seoul , South Korea.
authors.forename: Tae Un
authors.initials: TU
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Hee Jin
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Cheong
authors.forename: Joon Young
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: Song
authors.forename: Ji Yun
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: Noh
authors.forename: Woo Joo
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Kim
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006562:Herpes Zoster / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000517:prevention & control*; D053061:Herpes Zoster Vaccine / Q000008:administration & dosage*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care; D056910:Republic of Korea / Q000453:epidemiology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014611:Vaccination / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D053061:Herpes Zoster Vaccine
keywords: CI, confidence interval; GEE, generalized estimating equation; HZ, herpes zoster; KUGH, Korea University Guro Hospital; OR, odds ratio; PHN, postherpetic neuralgia; VZV, varicella zoster virus; awareness; health behavior; health surveys; herpes zoster; vaccination