Information sources and knowledge on vaccination in a population from southern Italy: The ESCULAPIO project

ABSTRACTVaccine knowledge of the general population is shaped by different information sources and strongly influences vaccination attitudes and uptake. The CCM-Italian Ministry of Health ESCULAPIO project attempted to identify the role of such information sources, in order to address adequate strategies to improve information on vaccines and vaccine preventable diseases.In the present study, data on 632 adults from Southern Italy regarding information sources were collected, and their perceived and actual knowledge on vaccinations were compared and analyzed in relation to socio-demographic characteristics and information sources.The main reported reference sources were general practitioners (GPs) (42.5%) and pediatricians (33.1%), followed by mass media (24.1%) and the Internet (17.6%). A total of 45.4% reported they believed to be informed (45.4%), while those estimated to be truly informed were 43.8%. However, as showed in the multivariate logistic regression, people having the perception to be correct...