Willingness to Vaccinate against COVID-19 among Healthcare Workers: An Online Survey in 10 Countries in the Eastern Mediterranean Region

  1. Yasir Ahmed Mohammed Elhadi
  2. Azza Mehanna
  3. Yusuff Adebayo Adebisi
  4. Haider M. El Saeh
  5. Saddam Abdulhakem Alnahari
  6. Omar Hassan Alenezi
  7. Diala El Chbib
  8. Zahraa Yahya
  9. Eiman Ahmed
  10. Shoaib Ahmad
  11. Saad Uakkas
  12. Majdi Mohammed Sabahelzain
  13. Bushra Ahmed Alyamani
  14. Arash Nemat
  15. Don Eliseo Lucero-Prisno III
  16. Ashraf Zaghloul

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Abstract

BACKGROUND: Willingness of healthcare workers to be vaccinated is an important factor to be considered for a successful COVID-19 vaccination programme. This study aims to understand the willingness of health workers to receive a COVID-19 vaccine and its associated concerns across 10 countries in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR). METHOD: A cross-sectional study was conducted in January 2021 among healthcare workers in EMR using an online survey. Data were analyzed using IBM SPSS software package version 20.0. RESULTS: A total of 2806 health workers (physicians, nurses and pharmacists) completed and returned the informed consent along with the questionnaire electronically. More than half of the respondents (58.0%) were willing to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, even if the vaccination is not mandatory for them. On the other hand, 25.7% of respondents were not willing to take COVID-19 vaccine while 16.3 % were undecided. The top three reasons for not willing to be vaccinated were unreliability of COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials (62.0%), fear of the side effects of the vaccine (45.3%), and that COVID-19 vaccine will not give immunity for a long period of time (23.1%). CONCLUSION: Overall, the study revealed suboptimal acceptance of COVID-19 vaccine among the respondents in the EMR. Significant refusal of COVID-19 vaccine among healthcare professionals can reverse hard-won progress in building public trust in vaccination program. The findings suggest the need to develop tailored strategies to address concerns identified in the study in order to ensure optimal vaccine acceptance among healthcare workers in the EMR.

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  1. Version published to 10.5539/gjhs.v13n9p42
  2. Version published to 10.1101/2021.03.20.21253892v2 on medRxiv
  3. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.03.20.21253892: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementConsent: Individuals who do not consent to participate in the study were excluded.
    IRB: Ethical Considerations: This study has been approved by Ethics and Technical Committee of High Institute of Public Health Alexandria University.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Data Analysis: Data were fed to the computer and analyzed using IBM SPSS software package version 20.0 (Armonk, NY: IBM Corp).
    SPSS
    suggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)

    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:
    However, our study is not without limitations. There is a risk of selection bias and this would limit the generalizability of our findings to all the healthcare professionals in EMRO. Additionally, our study only included nurses, physicians, and pharmacists. Despite these limitations, these findings are not inconsistent with the findings from previous studies about vaccine hesitancy among healthcare workers. The survey questionnaire was available in English and distributed in an online format, which can further introduce selection bias favoring English-literate HCWs and those with access to the Internet. Social desirability bias may also affect the interpretation of our study results. Most importantly, the survey was conducted in January 2021 when information regarding COVID-19 vaccines may have not circulated widely. Therefore, it possible that intention to be vaccinated would have changed.

    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.

  4. Version published to 10.1101/2021.03.20.21253892v1 on medRxiv