A Local Survey of COVID-19: Vaccine Potential Acceptance Rate among Personnel in a Level 1 Trauma Center without Severe COVID-19 Cases.

BACKGROUND

Healthcare workers (HCWs) in hospitals are at high risk during the COVID-19 pandemic. Healthcare workers' infection risk could be amplified during the ongoing pandemic due to various factors, including continuous exposure to patients and inadequate infection control training. Despite the risk healthcare workers face, vaccine hesitancy remains a global challenge. Differences in acceptance rates have ranged from less than 55% (in Russia) to nearly 90% (in China). In order to improve our knowledge of vaccine acceptance and its variation in rates, an evaluation is warranted. A survey was thus administered to healthcare workers.

METHODS

This survey aimed to address vaccination acceptance among employees in an urban level 1 trauma hospital. It was conducted through a developed and structured questionnaire that was randomly distributed online among the staff (age ≥18 years) to receive their feedback.

RESULTS

Among 285 participants (out of 995 employees), 69% were female, and 83.5% were overaged more than 30 years of age. The two largest groups were nurses (32%) and doctors (22%). The majority of respondents reported that they would "like to be vaccinated" (77.4%) and that they trusted the COVID-19 vaccine (62%). Moreover, 67.8% also reported that they felt the vaccination was effective. They reported that vaccination was a method to prevent the spread of COVID-19 (85.15%) and was a way to protect individuals with weak immune systems (78.2%). More importantly, the participants were concerned about other people (80.1%) and believed the vaccine would protect others. On the other hand, the result showed that the majority of participants (95.3%) chose to be vaccinated once everyone else was vaccinated, "I don't need to get vaccinated". Results showed that the majority of participants that chose "I don't need to get vaccinated" did so after everyone else was vaccinated. Our results show that COVID-19 vaccination intention in a level 1 trauma hospital was associated with older age males who are more confident, and also share a collective responsibility, are less complacent, and have fewer constraints.

CONCLUSION

Acceptance of the COVID-19 vaccine is relatively low among healthcare workers (HCWs). Differences in vaccine acceptance have been noted between different categories of HCWs and genders. Therefore, addressing barriers to vaccination acceptance among these HCWs is essential to avoid reluctance to receive the vaccination, but it will be challenging.