“Vaccination intentions” caught the attention of a Universitas Indonesia (UI) student. Tri Widianti, a student of the Master program of the Department of Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Indonesia (FEng UI) conducted research related to the variable determinants of the intention of Covid-19 vaccination in Indonesian society through research entitled “ID 67 COVID-19 Vaccination Intention in Indonesia: A Comprehensive Conceptual Model“, with lecturer of the Department of Industrial Engineering FEng Dr. rer. pol. Romadhani Ardi. ST, MT, and Himma Firdaus from the National Research and Innovation Agency.
Thanks to this research, Tri won third place at the IEOM Graduates Student Paper Competition Award from the Industrial Engineering and Operations Management (IEOM) 2022 international conference. The conference was held in Orlando, California, USA.
The World Health Organization (WHO 2022) states that the number of victims of the Covid-19 pandemic is more than 6 million people worldwide. This led to a drastic economic downturn (8%), and a sharp rise in unemployment (3.22%) (World Bank 2021).
This impact is also felt in Indonesia. One of the steps taken by the Indonesian government to handle the pandemic is to promote the vaccination program.
In the process, two problems arose, first the issue of the Covid-19 virus variant and the type of vaccine. Of the two vaccines that have been carried out, they were found to be less effective against Omicron. Second, there are some people who refuse to be vaccinated.
“Data from the Ministry of Health in 2021 shows that the acceptance of vaccination among Indonesians is still relatively low (64.8%). 27.6% of people are still undecided about accepting or refusing to be vaccinated, and the rest (7.6%) refuse to be vaccinated. Reasons for refusing vaccination include vaccine safety, effectiveness, side effects, religious beliefs, belief in conspiracy theories, social norms, cost, vaccine benefits, trust issues, and lack of vaccine knowledge,” said Tri, who participated in the IEOM competition in June 2022 in Orlando.
“This study proposes a model that explains the determinants of vaccination intentions. The model was developed based on the integration between Protection Motivation Theory (PMT), Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), Conspiracy Theory (CT), Knowledge, Attitude/Beliefs, Practice Theory (KAPT), Extended Parallel Process Model (EPPM), and the Health Belief Model (HBM). We offer twenty-one propositions that explain the relationship between vaccination intention and thirteen predictor variables,” explained Romadhani Ardi, who currently serves as FEng UI’s Manager of Student Affairs, Research and Community Service.
“The trial was conducted as a preliminary study before the main study. The main study was conducted in Banten Province, Indonesia. Partially Least Square – Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to test the model. The results found that perceived self-efficacy, attitudes, and subjective norms have a significant and direct effect on vaccination intentions. In addition, perceived benefits indirectly influence vaccination intention through attitude,” said Tri.
The Dean of FEng UI, Prof. Dr. Ir. Heri Hermansyah, ST., M.Eng., IPU expressed his hope for the research conducted by Tri and Romadhani Ardi. “Although the pandemic is starting to subside in Indonesia, it still leaves a lot of homework that we must solve together. Hopefully, this research can provide input for the government to develop a strategy to promote the vaccine program in order to achieve the vaccination target of the Indonesian people. I hope there will be a continuation of this research, especially regarding public behavior towards the Covid vaccine.”
