ABSTRACT
Background: Vaccine hesitancy poses severe challenges in achieving population immunity. Achieving high COVID-19 vaccination acceptance rates to ensure medical students' coverage as future health care providers is necessary. This study aims to assess the knowledge and attitude towards the COVID-19 vaccine among medical and paramedical students to determine factors and barriers influencing vaccination decision making. Method: A cross sectional, survey based study was conducted among Al Rayan medical and paramedical students. Data were collected via an online questionnaire and analyzed by SPSS with descriptive statistics. Results: In total, 465 students completed the survey. Over all, students expressed good knowledge of vaccination safety. However, students expressed different opinions towards receiving the vaccine. 52.4% of students showed great uncertainty towards the vaccine, 20.9% refused to take it and only 26.7% expressed that they would take it with great confidence. However, 50.5% of students expressed doubts about the vaccine's efficacy and 52.7% thought the vaccination process was expedited. In addition, 50.6% of respondents think they do not need to be vaccinated because they are still young and healthy. Conclusion: Medical and paramedical students have different outlooks toward vaccination. Several factors contribute to their decision, such as the lack of confidence in data provided by the media and authorities regarding the safety and validation process. Therefore, there is a severe need to educate young adults regarding the importance of vaccination to minimize the negative consequences of COVID19.