Seasonal Influenza Vaccine Intention among College Students: Testing the Impact of an Implementation Intentions Intervention
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Date
2025-05
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The Ohio State University
Abstract
Despite known benefits of vaccines, vaccine uptake falls short of current goals. People may not vaccinate due to vaccine-relevant fears. The Reasoned Action Approach understands an individual’s behaviors as due to their intent and perceived behavioral control. Intention is predicted by attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control. Implementation intentions are an intervention to support behavior and use a goal statement with an “if-then” statement structure. The current study included two research aims. The first aim is to test associations among the Reasoned Action Approach variables and intention to get the flu vaccine among college students. The second aim was to test the effect of an implementation intention intervention addressing vaccine-relevant fears and their effect on the Reasoned Action Approach variables predicting intention to get the seasonal flu vaccine. Participants completed an online, self-report survey. Participants in the intervention reviewed coping strategies and created an implementation intention while the control group only saw the coping strategies. Results showed that most Reasoned Action Approach variables were correlated in the expected direction. A trend was present for an association between vaccine-relevant fears and experiential attitudes. The intervention group saw a small effect size for positive change in experiential attitudes and capacity. The control group significantly decreased fear and had a trend for decreasing injunctive norms. Future research regarding implementation intentions and vaccine uptake is warranted.
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Keywords
implementation intentions, vaccine hesitancy, vaccine intention, fear, seasonal influenza