Healthcare personnel knowledge, motivations, concerns and intentions regarding COVID-19 vaccines: a cross-sectional survey

  1. Vivek Jain
  2. Sarah B. Doernberg
  3. Marisa Holubar
  4. Beatrice Huang
  5. Carina Marquez
  6. Lillian Brown
  7. Luis Rubio
  8. Hannah A. Sample
  9. Jenna Bollyky
  10. Guntas Padda
  11. Daisy Valdivieso
  12. Amanda Kempema
  13. Christopher Leung
  14. Matthew Sklar
  15. Aida Julien
  16. Marcus Paoletti
  17. Sravya Jaladanki
  18. Emerald Wan
  19. Jacob Ghahremani
  20. Jessica Chao
  21. Yingjie Weng
  22. Di Lu
  23. David Glidden
  24. Kevin Grumbach
  25. Yvonne Maldonado
  26. George Rutherford

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Abstract

Background

Healthcare personnel (HCP) are prioritized for earliest SARS-CoV-2 vaccine administration, yet relatively few data exist on HCP’s knowledge, motivations, concerns, and intentions regarding COVID-19 vaccines.

Methods

We conducted a cross-sectional survey Nov.16-Dec.8, 2020 among HCP enrolled in a cohort study at three Northern California medical centers serving diverse roles including COVID-19 patient care. Eligible HCP were adult (age≥18) on-site employees of the University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco General Hospital, and Stanford Healthcare. A one-time electronically-administered survey was sent to cohort HCP on November 16, 2020 and responses analyzed.

Results

Overall, among 2,448 HCP invited, 2,135 completed the COVID-19 vaccine survey (87.2% response rate). HCPs had mean age 41 years, were 73% female, and had diverse jobs including COVID-19 patient contact. Enthusiasm for vaccination was overall strong, and more HCP (1,453, 69%) said they would definitely/likely receive vaccine if formally FDA-approved versus if approved via emergency use authorization only (785, 35%). While 541 (25%) respondents wanted to be among the earliest to receive vaccine, more desired vaccination after the first round (777, 36%) or >2 months after vaccinations began (389, 18%). Top factors increasing motivation for vaccination included perceiving risk from COVID-19 to self (1,382, 65%) or to family/friends (1355, 63%). Top concerns were vaccine side effects, cited by 596 (28%), and concerns about political involvement in FDA’s approval process (249, 12%).

Conclusions

HCP were enthusiastic about COVID-19 vaccination for individual protection and protecting others, but harbored concerns about vaccine side effects. Our data may inform emerging vaccine education campaigns.

Key Points

Among 2,135 healthcare personnel surveyed, we found enthusiasm for COVID-19 vaccination both for individual benefit and protecting others. However, healthcare personnel rated their knowledge of COVID-19 vaccines as only moderate and harbored concerns about vaccine side effects. Education raising awareness of vaccine efficacy and side effects may help maximize vaccine uptake.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.02.19.21251993: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIRB: Ethics: The CHART Study and the COVID-19 vaccine survey were approved by the UCSF Committee on Human Subjects Research and the Stanford University School of Medicine Panel on Human Subjects in Medical Research.
    Consent: Patient Consent Statement: All participants provided informed written consent for participation.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Survey: Participants were sent an electronic link to a web-based eight-question web-based survey via REDCap (Research Electronic Data Capture) about COVID-19 knowledge, motivations, concerns, and intentions on November 18, 2020.
    REDCap
    suggested: (REDCap, RRID:SCR_003445)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Our study contains certain limitations: it was conducted rapidly from mid-November to early December 2020 in a dynamic environment of emerging data on COVID-19 vaccines. Efficacy and side effect data on the Pfizer-BioNTech [1]and Moderna [2] vaccines were made public during this time. These data may have been available to some but not other respondents. Further, FDA decisions on the two vaccines were not yet available, and emergency authorization for Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines occurred, respectively, on December 11 and 18, 2020 [6, 7]—after survey completion. It likely that healthcare personnel’s opinions on vaccination will evolve over time; future surveys and ascertainments of vaccination completion are planned to capture these changes. In summary, among 2,135 Californian healthcare personnel, we found moderate knowledge about COVID-19 vaccines, strong enthusiasm and intention for vaccination, but also certain concerns about possible side effects. Our data may help inform vaccine education campaigns for both healthcare personnel and the general public.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2021.02.19.21251993v1 on medRxiv