Protocol of the COVID-19 Health Adherence Research in Scotland Vaccination (CHARIS-V) study: Understanding the influence of vaccination decisions on adherence to transmission-reducing behaviours in a prospective longitudinal study of the Scottish Population

  1. Marina Maciver
  2. Chantal Den Daas
  3. Marie Johnston
  4. Diane Dixon
  5. Gill Hubbard

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Abstract

Introduction

The global population has been asked to live under tight restrictions to slow the spread of SARS-CoV-2. Transmission-reducing behaviours (TRBs), (physical distancing, hand washing, wearing a face covering) were introduced by governments in 2020 prior to vaccine availability. People should maintain TRBs throughout the vaccination programme, because there is much uncertainty about the vaccine efficacy, immunity duration, whether there will be the requirement for booster vaccines, and whether vaccinated individuals can be carriers of the virus. This study will explore the effect of the vaccination programme in Scotland on adherence to TRBs.

Methods and analysis

Telephone interviews will be conducted with participants from the nationally representative CHARIS project that agreed to be contacted for further research. Approximately 200, ten-minute telephone interviews will be conducted. Data will be collected on vaccine uptake or intention and adherence to TRBs. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses and moderation analyses will be used to analyse the data collected. Ethical approval was granted by the Life Sciences and Medicine School Ethics Review Board (SERB) at the University of Aberdeen.

Discussion

CHARIS-V will provide an understanding of the effect of the vaccination programme on adherence to TRBs in Scotland. Findings should be useful to governments and public health agencies for the current COVID-19 pandemic and vaccination programme and assist in the management of any future outbreaks.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.05.03.21256503: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Ethicsnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    RandomizationDesign and Participants: The CHARIS project was a serial, weekly, nationally representative, cross-sectional study of randomly selected adults in Scotland [34].
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power AnalysisStatistical Power: Using G-Power, assuming alpha of .05, 80% power, effect size 0.15 and 22 predictors will require a sample size, N=163 people.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Statistical Power: Using G-Power, assuming alpha of .05, 80% power, effect size 0.15 and 22 predictors will require a sample size, N=163 people.
    G-Power
    suggested: (G*Power, RRID:SCR_013726)

    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:
    Limitations: A limitation of this study is that we require individuals to self-report due to using telephone interviews to collect data. Measuring behaviour by self-report may cause the results to be subject to social desirability bias. However, it would be impossible to measure adherence to all the TRBs included in CHARIS-V by any other method. In addition, observational measures for adherence to TRBs could not be linked to individual vaccination behaviour. We believe the advantages provided by telephone interviews, such as population reach and generalisability outweigh the disadvantages. Another limitation in this study is that not everyone in Scotland will be invited to be vaccinated at the same time potentially resulting in variation in assessing behaviour and intention. Although this is a potential limitation of this study, variation in behaviour and intention is expected to be low as vaccine uptake in Scotland is expected to be high [8]. In addition, it will give information on adherence to TRBs at a time when only a small proportion of the population have been vaccinated, and adherence to TRBs are most crucial.

    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.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    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 10.1101/2021.05.03.21256503v1 on medRxiv