{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,31]],"date-time":"2025-12-31T04:51:14Z","timestamp":1767156674289,"version":"build-2065373602"},"reference-count":25,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"15","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2022,7,28]],"date-time":"2022-07-28T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1658966400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["IJERPH"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Vaccine hesitation is a topic of utmost importance, with the COVID-19 pandemic serving as a clear reminder of its timeliness. Besides evaluating COVID-19 vaccine acceptance in a sample of Portuguese people, this study aims at understanding cognitive and emotional representations related to vaccination, and their influence on vaccination hesitation. A cross-sectional online survey was conducted between 27 December 2020 and 27 January 2021. It assessed cognitive and emotional COVID-19 representations; vaccination status; cognitive and emotional representations of vaccination and perceived necessity and concerns about vaccines. Of 31 \u00d7 58 participants, 91% accepted taking a COVID-19 vaccine. Among several other significant findings, women (71.3%) more often considered that the pandemic affected their lives (p &lt; 0.001) and were more often concerned with being infected (p &lt; 0.001). Likewise, there were significantly more female participants concerned about taking a COVID-19 vaccine and its possible effects, when compared to the number of male participants (p &lt; 0.001). The number of participants with a higher education level that were more worried about becoming infected was greater (p = 0.001), when compared with those less educated. Regarding age groups, people aged 18 to 24 had fewer concerned participants (9.6%), while the number of individuals aged 55 to 64 had the most (p &lt; 0.001). Somewhat surprisingly, perceiving oneself as extremely informed about COVID-19 was not associated with greater vaccine acceptance (OR = 1.534 [1.160\u20132.029]; (p = 0.003)). Moreover, people aged 25 to 64 years old and with lower education level were more likely not to accept vaccination (OR = 2.799 [1.085\u20137.221]; (p = 0.033)). Finally, being more concerned about taking a vaccine lowers its acceptance (OR = 4.001 [2.518\u20136.356]; (p &lt; 0.001)). Cognitive and emotional representations have a great impact and are reliable predictors of vaccine acceptance. Thus, it is of extreme importance that public health messages be adapted to the different characteristics of the population.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/ijerph19159268","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,7,28]],"date-time":"2022-07-28T20:49:28Z","timestamp":1659041368000},"page":"9268","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":4,"title":["Acceptance and Adherence to COVID-19 Vaccination\u2014The Role of Cognitive and Emotional Representations"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"19","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-1433-3052","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Sim\u00e3o","family":"Pinho","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Biomedicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto, 4200-319 Porto, Portugal"},{"name":"S\u00e3o Jo\u00e3o University Hospital Center, 4200-319 Porto, Portugal"}]},{"given":"Mariana","family":"Cruz","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Biomedicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto, 4200-319 Porto, Portugal"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-9356-3272","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Cl\u00e1udia Camila","family":"Dias","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"CINTESIS@RISE, MEDCIDS, Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto, 4200-319 Porto, Portugal"},{"name":"Knowledge Management Unit and Department of Community Medicine, Information and Health Decision Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto, 4200-319 Porto, Portugal"}]},{"given":"Jos\u00e9 M.","family":"Castro-Lopes","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Biomedicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto, 4200-319 Porto, Portugal"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-9009-6653","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Rute","family":"Sampaio","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Biomedicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto, 4200-319 Porto, Portugal"},{"name":"CINTESIS@RISE, MEDCIDS, Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto, 4200-319 Porto, Portugal"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,7,28]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"470","DOI":"10.1016\/S0140-6736(20)30185-9","article-title":"A novel coronavirus outbreak of global health concern","volume":"395","author":"Wang","year":"2020","journal-title":"Lancet"},{"key":"ref_2","unstructured":"Adhanom, T. 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