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Perception, Willingness, Barriers, and Hesitancy Towards COVID-19 Vaccine in Pakistan: Comparison Between Healthcare Workers and General Population

Background Vaccine hesitancy has been a huge challenge in controlling preventable diseases. With the emergence of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines, it is vital to know their acceptance rates among the masses. No comparative data is available on the current subject from Pakistan yet. Ther...

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Autores principales: Kashif, Muhammad, Fatima, Iayla, Ahmed, Abdul Moiz, Arshad Ali, Shajeea, Memon, Roha Saeed, Afzal, Muhammad, Saeed, Usama, Gul, Sana, Ahmad, Junaid, Malik, Farheen, Malik, Mehreen, Ahmed, Jawad
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Cureus 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8627421/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34868757
http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.19106
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author Kashif, Muhammad
Fatima, Iayla
Ahmed, Abdul Moiz
Arshad Ali, Shajeea
Memon, Roha Saeed
Afzal, Muhammad
Saeed, Usama
Gul, Sana
Ahmad, Junaid
Malik, Farheen
Malik, Mehreen
Ahmed, Jawad
author_facet Kashif, Muhammad
Fatima, Iayla
Ahmed, Abdul Moiz
Arshad Ali, Shajeea
Memon, Roha Saeed
Afzal, Muhammad
Saeed, Usama
Gul, Sana
Ahmad, Junaid
Malik, Farheen
Malik, Mehreen
Ahmed, Jawad
author_sort Kashif, Muhammad
collection PubMed
description Background Vaccine hesitancy has been a huge challenge in controlling preventable diseases. With the emergence of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines, it is vital to know their acceptance rates among the masses. No comparative data is available on the current subject from Pakistan yet. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the acceptance of a potential COVID-19 vaccine among the general population and healthcare workers (HCWs) of Pakistan, along with their perceptions and barriers to acceptance. Methods An online cross-sectional study was carried out in Pakistan from December 19, 2020, to January 10, 2021, using convenience sampling. A self-administered questionnaire consisting of 31 items was distributed after informed consent. Inclusion criteria consisted of HCWs and non-HCWs (general population) aged 18 years and above, residing in Pakistan. All analyses were done using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 23.0 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA). Chi-square and T-test were used and a p-value of less than 0.05 was considered significant for all cases. Results Of the 404 respondents (n=196 general population and n=208 HCWs), 73.5% were willing to get a proven, safe, and effective COVID-19 vaccine if it was free of cost. This was reduced to only 64.3% if the vaccine was not free and had to be paid for. A total of 168 (41.6%) participants agreed to get vaccinated immediately, while 149 (36.9%) participants concurred to get it on a delayed basis. Eighty-seven (21.5%) participants refused to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, amongst which a significant majority (p<0.001) of the participants were from the general population. Doctors or scientists/scholarly journals were found to be the most trusted source of information (67.6%; n=273), while fear of unknown side effects (45.5%; n=184) was found to be the most common barrier towards COVID-19 vaccination. More than half (53.5%) participants believed that the vaccine is safe, effective, and has minimal side effects, amongst which a significantly large fraction (p<0.001) belonged to the HCWs. Conclusion The acceptance rate of a safe, effective, proven, and free COVID-19 vaccine was 73.5%. The fear of unknown side effects was the most common barrier to COVID-19 vaccine uptake. The general population demonstrated less knowledge, more false perceptions, and barriers to COVID-19 vaccine. Adequate measures should be taken to educate the masses about the COVID-19 vaccine, and its safety, and further studies are required.
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spelling pubmed-86274212021-12-03 Perception, Willingness, Barriers, and Hesitancy Towards COVID-19 Vaccine in Pakistan: Comparison Between Healthcare Workers and General Population Kashif, Muhammad Fatima, Iayla Ahmed, Abdul Moiz Arshad Ali, Shajeea Memon, Roha Saeed Afzal, Muhammad Saeed, Usama Gul, Sana Ahmad, Junaid Malik, Farheen Malik, Mehreen Ahmed, Jawad Cureus Internal Medicine Background Vaccine hesitancy has been a huge challenge in controlling preventable diseases. With the emergence of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines, it is vital to know their acceptance rates among the masses. No comparative data is available on the current subject from Pakistan yet. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the acceptance of a potential COVID-19 vaccine among the general population and healthcare workers (HCWs) of Pakistan, along with their perceptions and barriers to acceptance. Methods An online cross-sectional study was carried out in Pakistan from December 19, 2020, to January 10, 2021, using convenience sampling. A self-administered questionnaire consisting of 31 items was distributed after informed consent. Inclusion criteria consisted of HCWs and non-HCWs (general population) aged 18 years and above, residing in Pakistan. All analyses were done using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 23.0 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA). Chi-square and T-test were used and a p-value of less than 0.05 was considered significant for all cases. Results Of the 404 respondents (n=196 general population and n=208 HCWs), 73.5% were willing to get a proven, safe, and effective COVID-19 vaccine if it was free of cost. This was reduced to only 64.3% if the vaccine was not free and had to be paid for. A total of 168 (41.6%) participants agreed to get vaccinated immediately, while 149 (36.9%) participants concurred to get it on a delayed basis. Eighty-seven (21.5%) participants refused to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, amongst which a significant majority (p<0.001) of the participants were from the general population. Doctors or scientists/scholarly journals were found to be the most trusted source of information (67.6%; n=273), while fear of unknown side effects (45.5%; n=184) was found to be the most common barrier towards COVID-19 vaccination. More than half (53.5%) participants believed that the vaccine is safe, effective, and has minimal side effects, amongst which a significantly large fraction (p<0.001) belonged to the HCWs. Conclusion The acceptance rate of a safe, effective, proven, and free COVID-19 vaccine was 73.5%. The fear of unknown side effects was the most common barrier to COVID-19 vaccine uptake. The general population demonstrated less knowledge, more false perceptions, and barriers to COVID-19 vaccine. Adequate measures should be taken to educate the masses about the COVID-19 vaccine, and its safety, and further studies are required. Cureus 2021-10-28 /pmc/articles/PMC8627421/ /pubmed/34868757 http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.19106 Text en Copyright © 2021, Kashif et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Internal Medicine
Kashif, Muhammad
Fatima, Iayla
Ahmed, Abdul Moiz
Arshad Ali, Shajeea
Memon, Roha Saeed
Afzal, Muhammad
Saeed, Usama
Gul, Sana
Ahmad, Junaid
Malik, Farheen
Malik, Mehreen
Ahmed, Jawad
Perception, Willingness, Barriers, and Hesitancy Towards COVID-19 Vaccine in Pakistan: Comparison Between Healthcare Workers and General Population
title Perception, Willingness, Barriers, and Hesitancy Towards COVID-19 Vaccine in Pakistan: Comparison Between Healthcare Workers and General Population
title_full Perception, Willingness, Barriers, and Hesitancy Towards COVID-19 Vaccine in Pakistan: Comparison Between Healthcare Workers and General Population
title_fullStr Perception, Willingness, Barriers, and Hesitancy Towards COVID-19 Vaccine in Pakistan: Comparison Between Healthcare Workers and General Population
title_full_unstemmed Perception, Willingness, Barriers, and Hesitancy Towards COVID-19 Vaccine in Pakistan: Comparison Between Healthcare Workers and General Population
title_short Perception, Willingness, Barriers, and Hesitancy Towards COVID-19 Vaccine in Pakistan: Comparison Between Healthcare Workers and General Population
title_sort perception, willingness, barriers, and hesitancy towards covid-19 vaccine in pakistan: comparison between healthcare workers and general population
topic Internal Medicine
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8627421/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34868757
http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.19106
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