Intent to get vaccinated against COVID-19 pandemic and its associated factors among adults with a chronic medical condition

BACKGROUND: Vaccination intent is defined as the willingness to get vaccinated against a COVID-19 pandemic in a situation where the vaccine is available at no cost. Nevertheless, even with the availability of COVID-19 vaccines, some part of the public is not expected to get vaccinated, mainly due to a phenomenon known as vaccine hesitancy or lack of intention. Furthermore, there is little information available on the intention of people with chronic medical conditions about the COVID-19 vaccines in Ethiopia. OBJECTIVE: The study aimed to assess the intent to get vaccinated against COVID-19 and its associated factors among adults with a chronic medical condition. METHOD: An institutional-based cross-sectional study was conducted from February 15 to March 15, 2021. Simple random sampling was employed to get representative samples. Data were collected by using a structured questionnaire through face to face interviews. The data were entered by Epi Info version 7 and analyzed with SPSS version 20. The data were analyzed by using binary logistic regression. Those variables with a P-value of ≤ 0.05 were considered significantly associated with the outcome variable. RESULT: In this study, 423 study participants took part with a response rate of 100%. The mean age of the study participants was 50.07 (SD ± 13.7) with a range of 18–85 years. The intention to get vaccinated against the COVID-19 pandemic was 63.8% [95% CI (58.6–68.2)]. In the multivariable analysis the variables, retiring from the job was [AOR = 2.65, 95% CI (1.02–10.35)], having health insurance coverage [AOR = 1.38, 95%CI (1.04–3.65)], being in the high socio-demographic status [AOR = 1.67, 95%CI (1.01–2.78)], being confident with the Country's health care system [AOR = 2.00, 95%CI (1.15–3.49)], and having good knowledge about COVID-19 [AOR = 6.59, 95% CI (4.02–10.78)] were significant predictors of intent to get vaccinated against COVID-19 pandemic compared. CONCLUSION: The intention of getting vaccinated against the COVID-19 pandemic was relatively low. There has to be a great effort by the health caregivers as well as the government to increase vaccination intake, particularly for these priority groups.