Survey data of the health literacy on COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccination in Indonesia

Introduction: Health literacy on COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccination is
valuable during the pandemic. The objective of this study was to determine
the levels of health literacy about the COVID-19 vaccine and vaccination
(Vaccine and Vaccination literacy—VL) in the Indonesian adult general
population, assessing the perceptions of the respondents/interviewees
about current adult immunization and beliefs about vaccination in general,
and analyzing correlations of these variables with the VL
levels.  Methods: A rapid survey was administered via the web.
Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential stats; the internal
consistency of the VL scales was assessed through Cronbach’s alpha
coefficient, and a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was conducted to
investigate how the questions of the functional and interactive-critical
VL scales were related to one another and whether the underlying
components (factors) and each question’s load on the components could be
identified as anticipated. An alpha level lesser than 0.05 was considered
significant. Results: Answers to functional- and interactive/ critical- VL
questions showed good/ acceptable internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha =
0.817 and 0.699, respectively), lowest values observed were 0.806 for
functional scale and 0.640 for the interactive-critical scale. PCA showed
two components accounting for 52.45% of the total variability.
Approximately 60% of respondents were females (n=686). Almost all
respondents used the internet to seek information regarding COVID-19 and
COVID-19 vaccination. Many used at least one social media actively with
74.4% of respondents sometimes believing the validity of this information.
Conclusions: High scores were observed in both functional- and
interactive/ critical-VL, and were quite balanced between genders in the
prior VL and higher in females for the latter; these were also closely
related to the educational level and age group. It is crucial to increase
public health literacy on managing the pandemic.