Journal Article

The World Café as a Tool for Evaluating the Level of Acceptance of SARS‐CoV‐2 Screening in School Settings, Puglia Region, Italy, 2023

Gabrielli, Elisa, Nuccetelli, Fabiana, Lopalco, Pier Luigi, Prato, Rosa, Gabellone, Valeria, Ascatigno, Leonardo

2025

Overview

Background The introduction of screening tests for Sars‐CoV‐2 has been an extraordinary prevention and control tool during the COVID‐19 pandemic. However, pandemic control interventions, including screening and vaccine mandates, induced refusal reactions in many people. To date, little information is available on the levels of acceptance of screening practices by the young population in school settings. Objective The objective of this work is to survey students' attitudes, behaviours and emotions towards Covid‐19 screening tests by the means of a participatory research method, the World Café (WC). Materials and Methods Between March and May 2023, three WC sessions were conducted in three high schools, with 70 students enrolled on a voluntary basis. As per standard procedure, a moderator was assigned at each table to facilitate dialogue and the WCs were recorded, transcribed and imported into ATLAS.ti software for qualitative analysis. Results The analysis showed that the themes most reported during the WCs were those regarding the emotional domain, particularly feelings of distress, anxiety, fear, frustration, inadequacy and loneliness. Discussion Although the themes ‘Emotions/thoughts’ appear to be the most prominent among students, also ‘Public health policies’ constitutes a predominant theme group. Finally, the theme ‘Communication’ sparked lively debate, being the fourth most discussed topic. Conclusions The many insights from the WC analysis, when properly reframed, bring out useful elements for taking actions during prevention campaigns. Institutions and schools should focus on disseminating clear and targeted messages to help fight misinformation and distrust. Moreover, such evidence suggests that the World Café method proves to be useful and effective for exploring the emotional sphere of adolescents and analysing their thoughts, attitudes and knowledge. Patient or Public Contribution The research team collaborated with the school personnel to set up the right setting for running the World Café sessions. The World Café method allowed the researchers to gather students' insights by the means of a participative process. Honest debate and active engagement of students provided the researchers with a list of statements very useful for informing health policy and recommendations.

• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Inc,John Wiley and Sons Inc,Wiley
• Subject: Acceptance / Adolescent / Adolescents / Anxiety / Attitudes / Communication / COVID-19 / COVID-19 - diagnosis / COVID-19 - prevention & control / COVID-19 Testing / Debates / Disease prevention / Disease transmission / Educational attainment / Emotions / Female / Frustration / Health care policy / Health policy / Humans / Illnesses / infectious disease / Italy - epidemiology / Loneliness / Male / Mass Screening - psychology / Medical screening / Misinformation / Original / Pandemics / Participatory research / Patient Acceptance of Health Care - psychology / Patient Acceptance of Health Care - statistics & numerical data / Prevention / Psychological distress / Public health / Public schools / Qualitative analysis / Qualitative research / Refusal / Research methodology / SARS-CoV-2 / school / Schools / screening / Secondary school students / Secondary schools / Severe acute respiratory syndrome / Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 / Social networks / Student attitudes / Students / Students - psychology / Surveys and Questionnaires / Tests / Usability / World Café