peer response

Last week I spoke about current problems related to Covid-19. As conflicting information circulates through-out the media and even through reputable sources, vaccine hesitancy continuous to grow. Consequently, the persistence of non-vaccinated individuals remains and unfortunately, it’s these individuals who suffer the steepest Covid-19 consequences. A recent study confirms these findings by comparing mortality percentages of vaccinated vs non-vaccinated individuals revealing an increased percentage in mortalities coming from the non-vaccinated group (Muthukrishnan et al, 2021). Because of these discrepancies, I would like to ask the research question: are nursing students more likely to get the vaccine compared to non-nursing students due to having increased healthcare knowledge? The purpose of this research question would be to dive into the knowledge that nursing students possess related to the vaccine compared to non-nursing students. The assumption is that nursing schools are reliable and accurate sources of covid-19 vaccine information leading to decreased vaccine hesitancy among nursing students. Another research study completed by Manisha et al 2021 compares the knowledge of nursing students to non-nursing students (IT and physiotherapy). Their research revealed a significant difference in knowledge percentages. 47% of nursing students, 40% from physiotherapy, and 20% from the IT department were found to have good knowledge regarding Covid-19 (Manisha et al, 2021).  Using the data that was collected from the previous survey conducted,  the research question I proposed would be considered a quantitative question. Numerical data has been gathered from the public regarding Covid-19 knowledge, how that information was obtained, and how likely they are to get the vaccine. The aim of this research study proposal would also be to empower nursing professors to promote accurate and reliable Covid-19 information to nursing students as they will be confronting the big problem, Covid-19, in the front line.