Willingness to vaccinate against Novel COVID-19 and contributing factors for the acceptance among nurses in Qassim, Saudi Arabia.

OBJECTIVE

The aim of the article is to determine the level of COVID-19 vaccine acceptance among nurses. It also aimed to identify contributing factors of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among nurses in Qassim, Saudi Arabia.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

This cross-sectional study was carried out on nurses working in Ar-Rass general hospital and primary care centers, Qassim, Saudi. A self-administered questionnaire was collected between 27/11/2020 to 7/12/2020. The questionnaire consists of socio-demographics, knowledge, and practice in regard to coronavirus, attitude toward vaccinations, coronavirus vaccine acceptance, and reasons for hesitancy.

RESULTS

Out of 468 nurses, 334 nurses completed the survey. Overall, (236) 70.7% of nurses were willing to uptake coronavirus vaccine, which is a relatively high acceptance rate. 78.7% believe that COVID-19 vaccination should be mandatory once available. The main four reasons for hesitancy were the lack of knowledge 23.1%, long term adverse effects 17.7%, short-term side effects of the vaccine 9.3%, non-effective vaccine 8.7%.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings presented in this study can help Saudi Arabian health authorities to tailor educational campaigns for nurses and development of effective vaccination programs to increase the novel vaccine acceptance and uptake among nurses' population.