Group-based trajectory modeling to identify health beliefs of COVID-19 vaccination and its predictors: A cohort study in China

ABSTRACT

Objectives

This study aimed to characterize distinct patterns of change in health beliefs and their dimensions of COVID-19 vaccination and to evaluate the predictors of various trajectory groups.

Methods

A total of 1129 participants who completed two doses of COVID-19 vaccines in China were included in this prospective study. Participants’ characteristics and health beliefs regarding COVID-19 vaccination were collected before and after the two doses of COVID-19 vaccination. A group-based trajectory model was used to identify the distinct longitudinal patterns of health beliefs and their dimensions. A multinomial logistic regression model was conducted to determine the predictors of different trajectory groups.

Results

The group-based trajectory model identified two to four distinct patterns of global health beliefs and their domains, namely, very low-stable (16.1%), low-stable (30.2%), medium-stable (45.6%), and high-stable (8.1%) trajectories for global health beliefs. And the five domains of health beliefs showed two or three trajectory stable progression, which were similar to the global health beliefs trajectories. Sex, occupation post, adverse reactions foreboding, and quality of life were associated with the trajectory of global health beliefs or at least one domain of health beliefs.

Conclusions

During the study, individuals’ health beliefs about COVID-19 vaccination were stable without the interference of external factors. Based on the impact of sex, occupation post, adverse reactions foreboding, and quality of life on individuals’ health beliefs, personalized interventions can be developed to improve public health beliefs about COVID-19 vaccination and reduce vaccination hesitancy.

KEYWORDS:

• Health beliefs
• COVID-19
• COVID-19 vaccines
• group-based trajectory model

Abbreviations

Table

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all participants of the study for their cooperation and support.

Authors’ contributions

We attest that each author has provided substantial contributions to the conception and design of the study, participate the investigation, and write a draft or revision of the article. LLK and YJW performed the statistical analyses and drafted the original manuscript. THT and CWC participated in the methodology assessment, interpreting the results and in drafting the manuscript. SZX and HL performed the investigation. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethics approval

This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Shenzhen Bao’an District Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital (approval number: KY202101001). The aim of study and study procedure were explained to participants clearly before the study was conducted. The informed consent of respondents was implied on the completion of the questionnaire.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website at https://doi.org/10.1080/21645515.2022.2091899.

Additional information

Funding

The authors reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.