Klugar Miloslav, Riad Abanoub, Mohanan Lekshmi, Pokorná Andrea
Czech National Centre for Evidence-Based Healthcare and Knowledge Translation (Cochrane Czech Republic, Czech EBHC: JBI Centre of Excellence, Masaryk University GRADE Centre), Faculty of Medicine, Institute of Biostatistics and Analyses, Masaryk University, 625 00 Brno, Czech Republic.
Department of Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Masaryk University, 625 00 Brno, Czech Republic.
Vaccines (Basel). 2021 Dec 6;9(12):1437. doi: 10.3390/vaccines9121437.
The emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants and waning vaccine-elicited immunity are two public health challenges that occurred simultaneously and synergistically during the summer of 2021 and led to a surging demand for COVID-19 vaccine booster dose (BD) rollout. This study aimed to evaluate the COVID-19 vaccine booster hesitancy (VBH) among Czech healthcare workers to explore the potential determinants of VBH. A national cross-sectional survey-based study was carried out between 3 and 11 November 2021, using an online self-administered questionnaire (SAQ) that explored the participants' demographic characteristics, COVID-19 infection and vaccine anamneses, willingness to receive COVID-19 vaccine BD, and the psychosocial drivers of VBH. A total of 3454 HCW properly responded to the online SAQ, of which 80.9% were females, 30.3% were medical professionals, and 50.5% were ≤47 years old. Most of the participants were already inoculated against SARS-CoV-2 (95.2%), and BTN162b2 was the most commonly administered vaccine (90.7%). As the study sample was planned to represent the target population, it revealed a high level of BD acceptance (71.3%) among Czech HCW, while 12.2% were still hesitant and 16.6% were against the currently available BD. These results are consistent with other recent results from central Europe. Medical professional, male, and older participants were more likely to accept BD rather than allied health professional, female, and younger participants. The BDs' perceived effectiveness against severe illness, symptomatic infection, and community transmission was a significant and strong predictor for BD acceptance, while the effectiveness against the circulating variants was not that important for our target population. The BDs' perceived safety and ethical dilemmas of vaccine justice should be addressed sufficiently while communicating with HCW and other population groups. The altruistic reasons for BD acceptance, i.e., family protection, patient protection, and community health protection, underpin the recommendation of postponing the COVID-19 vaccine mandating in favour of stressing these altruistic concerns amid public health messaging.
新型严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒2（SARS-CoV-2）变种的出现以及疫苗诱导免疫力的减弱，是在2021年夏季同时出现且相互作用的两个公共卫生挑战，这导致了对2019冠状病毒病（COVID-19）疫苗加强针（BD）接种的需求激增。本研究旨在评估捷克医护人员对COVID-19疫苗加强针的犹豫程度（VBH），以探索VBH的潜在决定因素。2021年11月3日至11日开展了一项基于全国横断面调查的研究，使用在线自填问卷（SAQ），该问卷探讨了参与者的人口统计学特征、COVID-19感染和疫苗接种史、接受COVID-19疫苗加强针的意愿以及VBH的心理社会驱动因素。共有3454名医护人员正确回复了在线SAQ，其中80.9%为女性，30.3%为医学专业人员，50.5%年龄≤47岁。大多数参与者已经接种了SARS-CoV-2疫苗（95.2%），BNT162b2是最常用的疫苗（90.7%）。由于研究样本计划代表目标人群，结果显示捷克医护人员对加强针的接受程度较高（71.3%），而12.2%的人仍持犹豫态度，16.6%的人反对目前可用的加强针。这些结果与中欧最近的其他结果一致。医学专业人员、男性和年龄较大的参与者比专职医疗人员、女性和年龄较小的参与者更有可能接受加强针。加强针在预防重症、有症状感染和社区传播方面的感知有效性是加强针接受度的一个重要且有力的预测因素，而针对流行变种的有效性对我们的目标人群来说并不那么重要。在与医护人员和其他人群沟通时，应充分解决加强针的感知安全性和疫苗公平性的伦理困境问题。接受加强针的利他主义原因，即保护家人、保护患者和保护社区健康，是建议推迟实施COVID-19疫苗强制接种，转而在公共卫生宣传中强调这些利他主义关切的依据。
