ABSTRACT
Background and aim Following emergency approval of vaccines, the amount of scientific literature investigating population hesitancy towards vaccination against the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has increased exponentially. Nevertheless, the associated psychological behaviors with this phenomenon are still not clearly understood. This study aims to assess the psychological antecedents of the Arab population toward COVID-19 vaccines. Methods A cross-sectional, online study using a validated Arabic version of the 5C questionnaire was conducted through different media platforms in different Arabic-speaking countries. The questionnaire included three sections: socio-demographics, COVID-19 related questions, and the 5C scale of vaccine psychological antecedents, namely confidence, complacency, constraints, calculation, and collective responsibility. Results A total of 4,474 participants, 40.8% males from 13 Arab countries were included in the study. About 26.7% of participants had confidence in COVID-19 vaccination, 10.7% had complacency, 96.5% had no constraints, 48.8% had calculation and 40.4% had collective responsibility. The 5C antecedents showed variation among countries with confidence and collective responsibility being higher in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) (59% and 58%, respectively), complacency and constraints were higher in Morocco (21% and 7%, respectively) and calculation was higher in Sudan (60%). Regression analysis revealed that sex, age, educational degrees, being a health care professional, getting a COVID-19 infection, having a relative infected or died from COVID-19 can affect the 5C psychological antecedents by different degrees. Conclusion and recommendations Wide variations of psychological antecedents between Arab countries exist. Different determinants can affect vaccine psychological antecedents.
Subject(s)
COVID-19ABSTRACT
Background Willingness of healthcare workers to be vaccinated is an important factor to be consider for successful COVID-19 vaccination programme. Our study aimed to understand the willingness of health workers to receive COVID-19 vaccine and associated concerns across 10 countries in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMRO). Method A cross-sectional study was conducted in January 2021 among healthcare workers using an online survey. A total of 2806 health workers (Physicians, Nurses and Pharmacists) completed and returned the informed consent along with the questionnaire electronically. Data were analyzed using IBM SPSS software package version 20.0. S Results More than half of the respondents (58.0%) were willing to receive COVID-19 vaccine, even if the vaccination is not mandatory for them. On the other hand, 25.7% of respondents were not willing to undertake COVID-19 vaccination while 16.3 % answered undecided. The top three reasons for not intending to be vaccinated were unreliability of COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials (62.0%), fear of the side effects of the vaccine (45.3%), and that COVID-19 vaccine will not give immunity for a long period of time (23.1%). Conclusion Overall, our study revealed suboptimal acceptance of COVID-19 vaccine among our respondents in the EMRO region. Significant refusal of COVID-19 vaccine among healthcare professionals can reverse hard-won progress in building public trust in COVID-19 vaccination program. Our findings suggest the need to develop tailored strategies to address concerns identified in the study in order to ensure optimal vaccine acceptance among healthcare workers in the EMRO.