Lack of trust, insufficient knowledge and risk denial; an in-depth understanding of health workers barriers to uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine at Iganga Hospital Eastern Uganda, and Mengo Hospital Kampala Uganda

  1. Muhamadi Lubega
  2. Edith Namulema
  3. James Waako
  4. Nazarius Mbona Tumwesigye
  5. Safinah Kisu Museene
  6. Hellen Mukakaarisa
  7. Stefan Swartling Peterson
  8. Anna Mia Ekström

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Abstract

COVID 19 Vaccine hesitancy among health workers remains a major hindrance to the governments vaccine roll out plan among health workers and other target populations in Uganda. We conducted 12 focus group discussions and 20 in-depth interviews with health workers (vaccinated and unvaccinated) to understand barriers to vaccine acceptance in their own perspective and context in central and eastern Uganda. Reported barriers to vaccine acceptance included: gross lack of trust, fear of side effects, risk denial and insufficient information about the vaccine amidst negative publicity about the vaccine from the internet and social media platforms. Others were health system inhibition factors and religious beliefs against the vaccine. We recommend a health work context specific information, education and dissemination strategy to create awareness, information and more knowledge about the vaccine to health workers. We also recommend a sustained government media campaign to give more information about the vaccine and also dispel the negative publicity and misinformation about the vaccine. Dialogue with health workers at all levels of care, positive peer influence, use of religious and opinion leaders as well as government ensuring accessibly to various COVID 19 vaccines and putting vaccine posts outside hospital settings to limit exposure to COVID patients could also increase uptake of the vaccine among health workers.

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  1. Version published to 10.53430/ijsru.2024.7.1.0024
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.10.13.21264920: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsField Sample Permit: The research assistants were conversant with qualitative data collection methods, had conducted similar research in the study setting and were all fluent in Luganda and Lusoga (the local languages).
    IRB: Ethical clearance: The study was approved by the Mengo hospital Research and Ethics Committee (REC) ref MH/REC/39/06-2021, and the Uganda National Council for Science and Technology (UNCST).
    Consent: As part of the informed consent, the participants were told about the aims of the study, the anticipated benefits and risks, their ability to participate or withdraw at any time, and assured that all information obtained would be kept confidential.
    Sex as a biological variableAll data collection was supervised and assessed by the first author LM) who is a male, indigenous public health physician and the second and second last authors (WJ, NE) both of whom are conversant with qualitative research and the health system dynamics for both Iganga and Mengo hospitals respectively.
    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: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    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.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2021.10.13.21264920v1 on medRxiv