Factors Associated with Healthcare Workers’ (HCWs) Acceptance of COVID-19 Vaccinations and Indications of a Role Model towards Population Vaccinations from a Cross-Sectional Survey in Greece, May 2021

Abstract

A Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices (KAP) study was conducted at the end of May 2021 engaging 1456 healthcare workers (HCWs) from 20 hospitals throughout Greece. Acceptance of vaccination against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was estimated at 77.7%, with lower vaccine acceptance identified in nurses compared to physicians. Fears related to vaccine safety, lack of information and general knowledge about vaccinations, influenza vaccine acceptance, education level and years of practice were among the factors independently associated with vaccine acceptance. A strong association was identified between vaccination of HCWs in each health region and the population coverage, indicating that HCWs may be role models for the general population. Information campaigns should continue despite decisions taken regarding mandatory vaccinations.

Factors Associated with COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy after Implementation of a Mass Vaccination Campaign

“…Hence, the reported vaccine acceptance or hesitancy was mostly assessed using hypothetical questions as there were still no vaccines available outside of the clinical trial setting [3][4][5][6][8][9][10]. Several cross-sectional studies have since explored COVID-19 vaccine acceptance and hesitancy and their determinants after the respective countries' vaccination program implementation, namely in European countries [2], such as the United Kingdom [15,16,20,21], Germany [15,22], Denmark [15,23], France [15], Hungary [15], Sweden [15], Italy [15], Norway [21], Poland [24], the Netherlands [25], Spain [26] and Greece [27]. Additional studies were also conducted in Saudi Arabia [28], the United States of America [13,17,21,29], South Africa [21,30], Jordan [31], Israel [32], Chile [33], China [18,21,34,35], Japan [21,36] and Australia [21], among others [21].…”

“…In these studies, COVID-19 vaccination acceptance or hesitancy varied according to age [2][3][4]6,[8][9][10]13,14,[16][17][18][20][21][22]24,30,[32][33][34][35][36][37][38], gender [3,6,10,13,14,16,18,[20][21][22]24,26,28,30,31,36], education [4,6,[8][9][10]13,14,17,18,21,22,24,…”

“…The main source of information on the COVID-19 vaccine [22,[27][28][29]31], belief in COVID-19 vaccination's effectiveness against new variants [28,31,37] and requirement for vaccination against this virus for international travelling [28] were also described as being associated with COVID-19 vaccination acceptance/hesitancy. Additionally, prior vaccination against the flu [5,[8][9][10]18,27,28,38], anxiety/depression symptoms [18], self-perception of poor health [38] or presence of comorbidities [8,18,38] were associated with acceptance of COVID-19 vaccines.…”

“…Negative perceptions on the safety [5,8,10,13,14,[16][17][18][19]21,25,27,[29][30][31]33,37] or efficacy/effectiveness [5,8,13,14,16,17,19,21,25,31,34,37] of these vaccines and misinformation on this topic [2,15] were described in individuals hesitant about COVID-19 vaccination. Additionally, a perception of COVID-19 as not a risk to self [5,8,10,[14][15][16][17][18]22,25,27,[30][31][32][33]37,38], as well as general distrust of COVID-19 vaccines [14,17], the go...…”

“…Conspiracy beliefs [15,19] and lack of concerns on health system constraints [15] were also linked to hesitancy towards these vaccines. Furthermore, the use of new technologies, such as mRNA [21,27,37], as well as the mass use of conditionally approved medicines were pointed out as factors that could increase COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy [37].…”