Physicians Concerns toward COVID-19 Vaccines

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Department of Public Health and Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Menoufia University, Menoufia, Egypt.

Abstract

Introduction: Vaccination is a successful method of controlling infectious
viral diseases, which may play a major role in virus spread limitation.Aim
of Work: To assess the concerns of Egyptian physicians towards COVID-19
vaccines and its associating factors. Materials and Methods: A crosssectional
study was conducted on 1026 Egyptian physicians; through a selfadministered
questionnaire covering socio-demographic data and physician
concerns toward COVID-19 vaccine was used. Results: Among 1026 studied
physicians (their age ranged from 25 to 57 years, with a mean of 39.46±10.17),
58.7% were male and 56.8% were from an urban residence. More than half
of physicians (56.9%) worked at a secondary care level and 21.7% of them
worked at a tertiary care level, 48.8% of participants were specialists and
19.3% were consultants. The mean duration of work experience was 12.94
±7.54 and ranged from 2 – 25 years. Nearly half of the participants (49.8%)
had COVID 19 disease before. Most of the studied physicians (74.9%) did not
attend COVID-19 vaccine awareness campaigns. Binary logistic regression
analysis showed that the significant independent predictors of high concern
score were working in a COVID-19 isolation unit, work experience more than
10 years, history of COVID 19 infection, and attending vaccine awareness
campaigns (odds ratio, 3.15, 2.0, 2.88 & 3.5 respectively). Conclusion:
Healthcare workers’ concern score toward COVID-19 vaccine is of prime
importance as it drives them to accept or refuse to take the vaccine and HCWs
were considered as a confident source of health information and advice to the
public. The modifiable factor that improves vaccine concern was attending
COVID-19 awareness campaigns about COVID-19 vaccine, so continuing and
increasing awareness campaigns about COVID 19 vaccine is warranted.

Keywords