Perceived stress, coping strategies and emotions during the anti-COVID-19 vaccination among Italian university students of health professions

Background. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, many studies have identified differences in college students’ attitudes towards vaccination. The aim of the present study was to investigate the psychological, emotional and behavioral responses influenced by the administration of the COVID-19 vaccine in a sample of college students in the health professions. Method. The questionnaire administered through the Google Modules platform was created ad hoc in order to investigate perceived stress (PSS-10), coping strategies (BRIEF COPE) and pre and post vaccination emotions (7 items). Participants. A total of 344 students participated in the study (M age = 22.62, SD = 3.17; F = 67.2%): medicine and surgery (37.5%), nursing (32.8%), obstetrics (15.4%) and physiotherapy (14.2%). Results. From the qualitative and quantitative analysis it emerged that 56.7% of the sample has moderate stress levels. Emotional and avoidant coping, especially in females, is the most prominent strategy. In the pre-vaccination analysis, “fear” was the primary emotion most experienced by students, characterized by the use of avoidance strategies. The words “hope” and “vaccination” were most often recorded in the post-vaccination phase. Conclusions. Our results showed that the association of lemmas in the post-vaccination phase shows students’ ability to adapt and be resilient through change and communicates that self-perception is important.