Willingness to Accept COVID-19 Vaccine and Its Determinants among Nigeria Citizens: A Web-based Cross-sectional Study

Abstract

Background: The peculiarity in Nigerians’ demographic, socio-economic and cultural pattern necessitated the need to explore potential COVID-19 vaccine acceptance. This study investigated the determinants of willingness to receive COVID-19 vaccine in Nigeria.
 Methods: An online cross-sectional study among the general population in Nigeria. Data were collected using an electronic questionnaire. A total of 368 individuals participated in the research. The outcome variable was willingness to accept COVID-19 vaccine coded as “Yes=1 and No=0.” Basic socio-demographic information of participants and other information related to COVID-19 were obtained. Stata MP 14 was used for the statistical analysis. Descriptive statistics were presented, test of association were carried out using chi square and a binary logistic regression was used to assess the determinants of willingness to accept COVID-19 vaccine. All analyses were performed at 5% level of significance.
 Results: The mean age of the respondents was 29.4 + 9.65 years. Majority of the study participants were female (58.9%), Yoruba (74.7%) and dwellers of urban area (68.5%). Also, 85.6% have attained tertiary level of education. Two-fifth (40.5%) of respondent reported their willingness to take the COVID-19 if made available. Majority (69.8%) of those that are willing to take the vaccine would prefer a live attenuated form and 39.6% would prefer the vaccine administered intramuscularly.
 Age group≥40 years (AOR: 5.20, CI: 1.02- 26.41), currently married (AOR: 2.81, CI: 1.05 – 7.53) and susceptibility to COVID 19 infection (AOR: 2.52, CI: 1.21 – 5.26) were associated with likelihood of willingness to accept COVID-19 vaccine.
 Conclusion: Despite the fact that majority were at risk of COVID-19 infection, willingness to receive COVID-19 vaccine was low among Nigerians. Level of maturity in terms of age and marriage as well as susceptibility to COVID-19 infection increased the likelihood of accepting COVID-19 infection. In Furtherance, younger ones, unmarried and non-susceptible individual may require more efforts tailored towards enrichment of understanding about the importance of COVID-19 vaccine in other to improve the acceptance of COVID-19 vaccine in Nigeria.

COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake, Unmet Need and Reported Side Effect in Nigeria: an Online Cross-sectional Study

“…Consistent with other studies in Nigeria (Eniade et al, 2021), Ethiopia (Mant et al, 2021), andJordan (El-Elimat et al, 2021), fear of the safety of the vaccine, fear of adverse effects, the e cacy of vaccine, lack of trust in the government and knowledge about the vaccines were the major reasons for unwillingness to take the COVID-19 vaccine. A previous study among women in Northern Nigeria documented vaccine hesitancy as 13%.…”

“…Vaccine hesitancy, a major impediment to vaccine uptake has been documented globally, but especially in Africa. A major concern towards the COVID-19 vaccine was the accelerated pace of the development of the vaccine, mistrust of the government's response, and safety (Eniade et al, 2021;Lazarus et al, 2020;Piot et al, 2019;Schaffer Deroo et al, 2020;Wang et al, 2020). It was reported by WHO that several African countries have paused COVID-19 vaccine rollouts because of safety concerns, due to fears of side effects reported in developed countries (WHO Africa, 2021).…”

“…In our previous study, we documented the willingness of Nigerians to receive the COVID-19 vaccines when it is made available, which shows that less than half of the population surveyed were willing to take the vaccine (Eniade et al, 2021). This brings concern and the need to further investigate the uptake of the vaccine, now that they are available.…”

Communicating COVID-19 Vaccine Safety: Knowledge and Attitude Among Residents of South East, Nigeria

“…Similarly, effective communication to create confidence and reduce public ambiguity is critical for promoting vaccination acceptability, willingness, and uptake, avoiding vaccine hesitancy, and dealing with any infodemic on the topic, such as in the case of COVID-19 vaccines. [27][28][29][30][31][32] has turned out to be unsuitable in addressing the issue. More so, it appears the body language of many Nigerians show likelihood and tendency of rejecting the vaccine even if it is made compulsory by the government.…”

COVID-19 in Nigeria: account of epidemiological events, response, management, preventions and lessons learned

“…Documented data showed that there were 150,308 documented recoveries from COVID-19 15,16 with some "No vaccine" advocates believing that vaccines are unwholesome tools for government control over the masses while others had hesitancy due to lack of trust in the government system and perceived risk of side effects of the vaccines.…”