Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice among the Healthcare Professionals regarding the myths on COVID-19 vaccination - Demystified

  1. Lokesh Kumar S
  2. Zameera Naik
  3. Arun Panwar
  4. Sridhar M
  5. Vaishali Keluskar
  6. Ram Surath Kumar K

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Abstract

Background

COVID-19 vaccine is the mighty weapon opted by all the countries across the globe in an attempt to eradicate the fatal COVID-19 pandemic. The myths on the COVID-19 vaccine are spreading widely, causing a hindrance to this noble preventive measure. The prevalence of such myths among the healthcare professionals may be toxic and deadly.

Aim & Objectives

To assess the knowledge, attitude, and practice of the healthcare professionals regarding the myths on COVID-19 vaccination and to demystify them.

Materials and Methods

An 18-item questionnaire evaluating knowledge, attitude, and practice based on the existing myths on COVID-19 vaccination was circulated through Google Forms ® among the 412 healthcare professionals of six disciplines belonging to a private University. The responses obtained were subjected to statistical analysis using SPSS ® 20 software package.

Results

A total of 385 health professionals participated in this study. The majority of them had medium knowledge (165) and positive attitude (273) with the mean knowledge and attitude scores of 3.82 ± 1.55 out of 6 and 4.3 ± 1.58 out of 7 respectively. Even though 312 participants got vaccinated, 72 of them failed to receive it. The knowledge scores showed a high statistically significant difference among the participants of different designations (p=0.001), but not with gender, field, and staff with different years of experience (p>0.05). The attitude scores were statistically different among participants of fields and designation (p<0.05) but not among genders (p=0.31) and staff with different years of experience (p=0.87). Knowledge and attitude scores showed a positive linear correlation and a high statistically significant difference (p<0.001).

Conclusion

This study recommends more enhanced education programs on COVID-19 vaccination for the health professionals and demands an improved knowledge, attitude, and practice among them to achieve the goal of 100% vaccination so as to completely eradicate the COVID-19 pandemic.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.07.30.21261378: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsIRB: The study was conducted among the health professionals involving the post-graduates, teaching staffs, and teaching staffs cum consultants between 20 to 65 years of age from the six constituent colleges of a private University in Belagavi District of North Karnataka, India who were included by simple random sampling, following the ethical clearance from the Institutional Research and Ethics Committee (Ref No: 1445).
    Consent: On clicking the link, this form informed the participants about the purpose, confidentiality, their voluntary involvement in the study, and also received the consent for participation (inclusion criteria) on selecting the mandatory “Yes” option to proceed with the submission.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    RandomizationThe study was conducted among the health professionals involving the post-graduates, teaching staffs, and teaching staffs cum consultants between 20 to 65 years of age from the six constituent colleges of a private University in Belagavi District of North Karnataka, India who were included by simple random sampling, following the ethical clearance from the Institutional Research and Ethics Committee (Ref No: 1445).
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power AnalysisThe sample size was estimated to be 376 using the formula where , and (derived from pilot study).

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    A self-designed 18-item pre-validated questionnaire, based on the myths/misconceptions regarding COVID-19 vaccine known to prevail among the general public obtained from the various internet sources like the official sites of Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Department of Health and Human Services, USA), University of Missouri Healthcare, IndiaToday etc., was used.
    Missouri Healthcare
    suggested: ( Washington University Center for Diabetes Translation Research , RRID:SCR_015204)

    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: This study was conducted in a smaller sample size of the health professionals of a single University. Future studies could be done, involving a larger population of health professionals from multiple centers, with a uniform sample size among the fields.

    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 10.1101/2021.07.30.21261378v1 on medRxiv