A qualitative study of pregnant women's opinions on COVID-19 vaccines in Turkey

OBJECTIVES: to examine pregnant Turkish women's opinions on COVID-19 vaccines. DESIGN: a qualitative approach was used to gather data through semi-structured interviews. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: 16 women about to receive a vaccine during their pregnancy and who did or did not experience vaccine hesitancy participated. ANALYSIS: qualitative content analysis. FINDINGS: three main themes emerged regarding the pregnant women's opinions on COVID-19 vaccines: fear, security/insecurity and social support. KEY CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: pregnant women mostly recalled their babies and fears about COVID-19 vaccines. Although the fear of vaccines created vaccine hesitancy during pregnancy, the fear of contracting COVID-19 led to a positive attitude to the vaccines. It is critical to provide pregnant women with information about COVID-19 and vaccines for the disease in order to enhance vaccination rates among pregnant women.