COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy and Its Relationship With Illness Risk Perceptions, Affect, Worry, and Public Trust: An Online Serial Cross-Sectional Survey From Turkey

Abstract

Objective: A better understanding of public attitudes towards vaccination and recognition of associated factors with vaccine hesitancy or refusal is important regarding the control of the pandemic. Our aim was to analyze the public’s attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccines and to identify factors affecting them. Materials and Methods: Data were drawn from the Turkish COVID-19 Snapshot Monitoring, between July-December 2020, a serial online cross-sectional survey. The sample comprised 3888 adult respondents. Attitudes to vaccines and trust were investigated in 3 periods corresponding to the timeline of pandemic-related events in Turkey. Results: In the third period of our study, in parallel with the increase in the spread of COVID-19, vaccine hesitancy/refusal increased significantly from 43.9% to 58.9% (P