Department of Family Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Faculty of Medicine, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
BMC Public Health. 2022 Feb 21;22(1):375. doi: 10.1186/s12889-022-12757-1.
The Coronavirus Disease of 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is a worldwide global public health threat. Although acceptance of COVID-19 vaccination will be a critical step in combating the pandemic, achieving high uptake will be difficult, and potentially made more difficult by social media misinformation. This study aimed to examine the association between social media use and acceptance of receiving COVID-19 vaccine among the general population in Saudi Arabia.
A cross-sectional study was conducted from June 17 to June 19, 2021 among 504 participants of the general population in Saudi Arabia. The data were collected using a three-part online questionnaire (sociodemographic characteristics, medical and vaccination history, pattern of social media use).
Among 504 participants who completed the survey, 477 participants were acceptant of the vaccine and 27 were non-accepting. A total of 335 individuals had already received the vaccine, 142 were willing to receive the vaccine and 27 were unwilling. One hundred and thirty participants denied using social media for COVID-19 news. Four factors were found to be significant in influencing vaccine acceptance in univariate analysis: having a chronic condition (odds ratio (OR) = 0.367, P = 0.019), believing that infertility is a side effect of the COVID-19 vaccine (OR = 0.298, P = 0.009), being concerned about a serious side effect from the vaccine (somewhat concerned: OR = 0.294, P = 0.022, very concerned: OR = 0.017, P < 0.0001), and basing the decision to be vaccinated on social media information (OR = 0.260, P = 0.006). Two of these factors fell away on multivariate analysis: basing the decision on social media information (OR = 0.356, P = 0.071), and a belief that vaccination causes infertility (OR = 0.0333, P = 0.054), suggesting that the associations are dependent on other factors.
In conclusion, there was no significant independent relationship between social media usage and people's willingness to receive a COVID-19 vaccination. Further studies to explore the association between social media use and vaccine decisions are required to generalize this observation to the Saudi population.
2019 年冠状病毒病（COVID-19）大流行是全球公共卫生的全球性威胁。尽管接受 COVID-19 疫苗接种将是对抗大流行的关键步骤，但要实现高接种率将很困难，而社交媒体上的错误信息可能会使情况变得更加复杂。本研究旨在调查沙特阿拉伯普通人群中社交媒体使用与接受 COVID-19 疫苗之间的关联。
2021 年 6 月 17 日至 6 月 19 日，对沙特阿拉伯的 504 名普通人群进行了横断面研究。使用三部分在线问卷（社会人口统计学特征，医疗和疫苗接种史，社交媒体使用模式）收集数据。
在完成调查的 504 名参与者中，有 477 名参与者接受了疫苗，有 27 名不接受疫苗。共有 335 人已接种疫苗，142 人愿意接种疫苗，27 人不愿意接种疫苗。有 130 人否认使用社交媒体获取 COVID-19 消息。单因素分析发现 4 个因素对疫苗接种有显著影响：患有慢性病（优势比（OR）=0.367，P=0.019），认为不孕是 COVID-19 疫苗的副作用（OR=0.298，P=0.009），担心疫苗会产生严重副作用（有些担心：OR=0.294，P=0.022，非常担心：OR=0.017，P<0.0001），并根据社交媒体信息做出接种疫苗的决定（OR=0.260，P=0.006）。其中两个因素在多因素分析中消失：基于社交媒体信息做出决定（OR=0.356，P=0.071）和认为接种疫苗会导致不孕（OR=0.0333，P=0.054），这表明这些关联取决于其他因素。
总之，社交媒体的使用与人们接受 COVID-19 疫苗之间没有显著的独立关系。需要进一步研究以探索社交媒体使用与疫苗接种决定之间的关系，以便将这一观察结果推广到沙特人口。
