Assessment of covid-19 vaccine acceptance among health care workers and general population - a cross-sectional survey

Abstract

Introduction: This cross-sectional survey was conducted to estimate the proportion of participants among health care workers and general population who are willing to get vaccinated against COVID-19 and those who are not, and to identify the reasons for vaccine hesitancy among the participants. Methods: Health care workers of a tertiary care hospital and the general population residing in the nearby areas of the tertiary care hospital were predominantly included in the study. A specific questionnaire was designed, validated, and administered to the participants after obtaining consent. Result: The responses were collected using Google Form and compiled in an excel sheet for analysis. The difference in opinion with regard to acceptance of the COVID-19 vaccine was statistically analysed using Chi-square test. The vaccine acceptance rate was high among the general population (70.2%) as compared to health care workers (56.7%) (p = 0.0006, highly significant). The remaining proportions of participants (43.3% of health care workers and 29.8% of general population) were hesitant to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. Conclusion: The reasons for vaccine hesitancy were fear of harmful effects, doubtful efficacy, lack of transparency in clinical trials, and fast track vaccine development.