Attitudes toward a COVID-19 vaccine and vaccination status in cancer patients: a cross-sectional survey

PURPOSE: We aim to assess attitudes toward a COVID-19 vaccine and vaccination status in cancer patients and to explore additional factors such as the level of information and comprehensibility and accessibility of this information, anxiety symptoms in general and toward COVID-19, and general health literacy. METHODS: We included 425 outpatients (mean age 61.4, age range 30–88 years, 60.5% women) of the Psychosocial Counseling Center for Cancer patients of the Department of Medical Psychology and Medical Sociology, Leipzig. We recorded attitudes toward a COVID-19 vaccine and vaccination status via self-report. The impact of psychosocial factors, including anxiety (GAD-7), COVID-19-specific anxiety (OCS; FCV-19S) and health literacy (HLS-EU-Q16) were analyzed with point-biserial correlations using Pearson’s r. RESULTS: We found that the vast majority (95.5%) reported being vaccinated against COVID-19 and that overall trust in safety and protective effects of a COVID-19 vaccine was high (90.9%). The vaccination readiness among nonvaccinated cancer survivors was low to very low with “fear of side effects” the most mentioned (72.2%) reason against a COVID-19 vaccine. There was no significant correlation between vaccination status and fear or anxiety symptomatology, and health literacy. Obsessive thoughts about COVID-19 was significantly higher in nonvaccinated cancer patients. CONCLUSIONS: Majority of respondents are positive about COVID-19 vaccine, accompanied by a very high rate of COVID-19 immunization in our sample. Further studies with a larger sample of nonvaccinated cancer patients should further investigate the relationship on fear and vaccination hesitancy and align communication strategies accordingly.