A Qualitative Study Regarding Messages of the COVID-19 Vaccine from Vaccinated Healthcare Providers and Healthy Adults

  1. Shuji Sano
  2. Satomi Sato
  3. Norio Ohmagari
  4. Osamu Takahashi

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Abstract

1.

Background

To promote the vaccination against COVID-19, person-to-person communication from vaccinated people will play an important role. The objectives of this study are to identify what messages were shared by vaccinated people, and the relationship between these messages and their background.

Methods

This study was an exploratory and prospective basis with individual interviews. The participants were healthcare providers and healthy adults who were recruited at a vaccination site in Chuo-City, Tokyo. The online interviews were conducted using a semi-structured interview. Based on the Health Belief Model (HBM), the participants were asked about their perspectives on vaccines and what they talked about after their vaccination. The interviews were categorized into each item of the HBM and analyzed using NVivo software.

Results

During August to October 2021, five healthcare providers and seven healthy adults were enrolled in the study. One healthy adult could not be contacted resulting in a total of 11 participants interviewed. Both the healthcare providers and the healthy adults mainly talked about side effects after their vaccination, and to ease the other persons’ concerns based on their experience. Meanwhile, there were differences in the recommendations for vaccination between the two groups. The healthcare providers were strongly aware of the severity of COVID-19 infection and recommended vaccination to others as a useful measure to suppress becoming severely ill. On the other hand, the healthy adults recommended the vaccine with varying degree depending on their expectations and concerns about the vaccine and external factors such as living with a family member.

Conclusion

Both the healthcare providers and healthy adults shared similar messages to ease the vaccination concerns of others. However, their vaccine recommendation level was varied, which may be influenced not only by expectations and concerns toward the vaccine, but also by external factors such as family members living together.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2022.03.24.22272878: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsConsent: Participation in this study was voluntary and written informed consents were obtained.
    IRB: The study was approved by the Research Ethics Board of St.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    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: There were several possible limitations in this study. At the vaccination sites in Chuo City, only residents of the Chuo City were eligible for vaccination. The characteristics of the participants include a high percentage of those with a university or graduate school education and a high level of health literacy. According to the national census in Japan [29], the national average of those with a university or graduate school education was 19.9%, while the participants in this study was 66.7%. The mean HLS-14 score in the national survey conducted by Suga (2013) was 50.3[17], while that of the participants in this study was 55.7, suggesting the possibility of selection bias and a higher level of health awareness than people in general. Therefore, most participants have had the thought of recommending vaccination. Furthermore, since only Comirnaty™ was provided at the vaccination site in this study, comments from people who had taken other vaccines were not available. Although the side effects reported for each vaccine were different, the incidence rate of side effects did not differ significantly for any COVID-19 vaccines, so the influence on the results of this study was considered to be minimal[26]. Elderly people and those under 20 years of age were not enrolled in this study. Enrollment in the study did not begin until August 2021, and many elderly people had already been vaccinated, so it was difficult to recruit them. Those under 20 years of age were also ...

    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

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  2. Version published to 10.1101/2022.03.24.22272878v1 on medRxiv