Volume 25, Issue 110, April 2021

Barriers to managing COVID-19 pandemic: Attitude towards vaccination and implications for public health

Zeinab Kasemy¹, Hoda Shreif², Alaa Tantawy², Ayah Barakat³, Asmaa Sharif^4,5♦

¹Department of Public Health and Community Medicine, Menoufia Faculty of Medicine, Egypt
²Researcher at Menoufia Faculty of Medicine, Egypt
³Department of Family Medicine, Menoufia Faculty of Medicine, Egypt
⁴Department of Forensic medicine and Clinical Toxicology, Faculty of Medicine, Tanta University, Egypt
⁵Departments of Clinical Medical Sciences, College of Medicine, Dar Al Uloom University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6104-562X

^♦Corresponding author
Forensic Medicine & Clinical Toxicology Department, Faculty of medicine, Tanta University, El Geish street, Tanta, Gharbia, Egypt, Email: asma.s@dau.edu.sa

ABSTRACT

Background: In order to achieve long-term optimum public health response, herd immunity is required, and this may happen if general populations willingly offered the COVID-19 vaccine. The current study aimed to explore the attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccine, and to outline the common barriers interfering with vaccination among Egyptian population. A cross-sectional study has been carried out among 1282 participants utilizing a self-administered questionnaire. Results: Negative attitude was associated with low trust in the capability of the country instructions to combat COVID-19 (OR=5.97, CI95%: 3.37-10.57), unsatisfactory knowledge (OR=15.73 CI95%: 9.54-25.92), being worried about adverse effects (OR=2.97, CI95%: 1.96-4.52), being not committed to protection measures like PPE, HH and social isolation (OR=2.16, CI95%: 1.42-3.25), not working (OR=3.04, CI95%: 2.11-4.36), low education (OR=10.12, CI95%: 7.11-14.40), don’t know deep experienced trials of vaccines (OR=1.76, CI95%: 1.45-2.13), being female (OR=3.09, CI95%: 2.17-4.39), increase age (OR=1.03, CI95%: 1.01-1.06) and depression symptoms (OR=1.64, CI95%: 1.12-2.41 ). Conclusion: The main barriers of negative attitude toward vaccine include worrying about vaccine side effects, poor knowledge regarding COVID-19 and mistrusting the country’s ability to combat it.

Keywords: COVID-19, Vaccination, Attitude, Hesitancy, Refusal, Barriers

Medical Science, 2021, 25(110), 1010-1019

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