The Willingness to Receive COVID-19 Vaccine and Its Associated Factors: “Vaccination Refusal Could Prolong the War of This Pandemic” – A Systematic Review

BACKGROUND: The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Wuhan, China, spreads globally, since its declaration by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a COVID-19 pandemic on March 11, 2020. COVID-19 vaccine is a crucial preventive approach that can halt this pandemic. The present systematic review was aimed to assess the level of willingness to receive COVID-19 vaccine and its associated factors. METHODS: A comprehensive literature search was conducted by using various online databases such as PubMed/MEDLINE, HINARI, EMBASE, Google Scholar, Web of Science, Scopus, African journals, and Google for grey literature which were used to search the related articles up to the period of May 08, 2021. RESULTS: The overall rate of participants’ willingness to receive the COVID-19 vaccine was ranged from 27.7% to 91.3%, which was from Congo and China, respectively. Factors such as age, educational status, gender, income, residency, occupation, marital status, race/ethnicity, perceived risk of COVID-19, trust in healthcare system, health insurance, norms, attitude towards vaccine, perceived benefit of vaccine, perceived vaccine barriers, self-efficacy, up-to-date on vaccinations, tested for COVID-19 in the past, perceived efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccination, recommended for vaccination, political leaning, perceived severity of COVID-19, perceived effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccine, belief that vaccination makes them feel less worried about COVID-19, believing in mandatory COVID-19 vaccination, perceived potential vaccine harms, presence of chronic disease, confidence, COVID-19 vaccine safety concern, working in healthcare field, believing vaccines can stop the pandemic, fear about COVID-19, cues to action, COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, complacency, and receiving any vaccine in the past 5 years were associated with the willingness of receive COVID-19 vaccine. CONCLUSION: There were insufficient levels of willingness to receive COVID-19 vaccine, and several factors were associated with it. Health education should be provided concerning this vaccine to improve the willingness of the community.