The COVID-19 vaccination acceptance/hesitancy rate and its determinants among healthcare workers of 91 Countries: A multicenter cross-sectional study.

Mehrdad Askarian, Aleksandr Semenov, Ferrán Llopis, Francesca Maria Rubulotta, Gorana Dragovac, Natalia Yu. Pshenichnaya, Ojan Assadian, Yvon Ruch, Zahra Shayan, Cristóbal Padilla Fortunatti

26 more authors

Daniel R. Lucey, Abdullah Almohaizeie, Abu Hena Mostafa Kamal, Adenike A. O. Ogunshe, Aidos K. Konkayev, Beg, Asim, Enzo Primerano, Fatma Abdelaziz Amer, Pilli Hema Prakash Kumari, Ivan Fan‐Ngai Hung, Folusakin Ayoade, Jean Yves Lefrant, Joanna Maria Zajkowska, Jordi Rello, Momin Kazi, Mohammad Hossein Taghrir, Stijn I. Blot, Stephen L. Leib, Parisa Hosseinpour, Hamidreza Hosseinpour, Amirhossein Erfani, Roham Borazjani, Hossein Akbarialiabad, Masoud Najafi, Ardalan Askarian, Hakan Erdem

EXCLI journal, 2021

Full text Open access: Gold Metadata (CSL-JSON)
DOI 10.17179/excli2021-4439
Data confidence 70 medium
How this score is calculated

It is built from checkable properties of the record itself: whether the article has a DOI, how many independent sources confirmed its data, whether the required fields are filled in, and how recent the latest confirmation is. Disagreement between sources and a missing identifier lower it. A value of 80 or above means the record was published without further checking; 60 to 79 means it is published at reduced confidence, with a manual check advisable. A record verified by an editor by hand is never pushed below 90 by a recalculation. This scores our data about the article, not the article itself.

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the COVID-19 vaccination acceptance rate and its determinants among healthcare workers in a multicenter study. This was a cross-sectional multi-center survey conducted from February 5 to April 29, 2021. The questionnaire consisted of 26 items in 6 subscales. The English version of the questionnaire was translated into seven languages and distributed through Google Forms using snowball sampling; a colleague in each country was responsible for the forward and backward translation, and also the distribution of the questionnaire. A forward stepwise logistic regression was utilized to explore the variables and questionnaire factors tied to the intention to COVID-19 vaccination. 4630 participants from 91 countries completed the questionnaire. According to the United Nations Development Program 2020, 43.6 % of participants were from low Human Development Index (HDI) regions, 48.3 % high and very high, and 8.1 % from medium. The overall vaccination hesitancy rate was 37 %. Three out of six factors of the questionnaire were significantly related to intention to the vaccination. While 'Perceived benefits of the COVID-19 vaccination' (OR: 3.82, p-value<0.001) and 'Prosocial norms' (OR: 5.18, p-value<0.001) were associated with vaccination acceptance, 'The vaccine safety/cost concerns' with OR: 3.52, p-value<0.001 was tied to vaccination hesitancy. Medical doctors and pharmacists were more willing to take the vaccine in comparison to others. Importantly, HDI with OR: 12.28, 95 % CI: 6.10-24.72 was a strong positive determinant of COVID-19 vaccination acceptance. This study highlighted the vaccination hesitancy rate of 37 % in our sample among HCWs. Increasing awareness regarding vaccination benefits, confronting the misinformation, and strengthening the prosocial norms would be the primary domains for maximizing the vaccination coverage. The study also showed that the HDI is strongly associated with the vaccination acceptance/hesitancy, in a way that those living in low HDI contexts are more hesitant to receive the vaccine.