Prevalence of vaccination against the Covid19 within mentally ill population and acceptance and hesitancy factors

Abstract

Introduction: Vaccines are effective interventions that can reduce the high burden of COVID19 globally. However, public vaccine hesitancy is a pressing problem for public health authorities. Objective(s): This study aimed to assess the prevalence of vaccination within mentally ill population and to point out the factors of acceptance and reticence. Method(s): We conducted a cross-sectional, descriptive and analytical study. It was carried out on a clinical population who consult in the psychiatry department in Sfax's university hospital Hedi Chaker. Patients included in our study were aged between 21 and 69 years and were not in a decompensation phase of their psychiatric illness Results: Forty five patients were included. The mean age was 45+/-13 years old. Our population was made up of 3 women (6.7%) and 42 men (93.3%).A rate of 42.2% of the patients was of urban origin, 15.6% lived with a partner, 77.8% were unemployed and 46.7% were schizophrenic. In our study population, five patients had COVID 19 (11.1%), fourteen patients (31.1%) were vaccinated and eight patients (17.8%) asked their psychiatrist to vaccine. The main reasons of vaccination were their belief that vaccination decreases the chance of contracting COVID 19 and its complications (0.00) , that COVID is lethal (0.002), and the fact that they trust it (0.001). Thirtyone patients (68.9%) refused vaccination, mainly due to reading or hearing negative information about vaccination (0.025). Vaccination wasn't correlated neither to the fact that it could be a conspiracy nor to the diagnostic. Conclusion(s): Our study reveals that one third of mentally ill patients are vaccinated. The reasons of acceptance of vaccination are multiple in opposite of the hesitancy factors.