Exploring Vaccine hesitancy for COVID-19 amongst Health and Social Care Professionals/Students: an Exploratory Study

Abstract

Background: Vaccine hesitancy (refusals or delays) is a major public health issue globally with anti-vaccine sentiments apparent. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, vaccination efforts were a priority especially amongst high priority groups such as frontline health and social professionals. Previous public health efforts to vaccinate health staff, for example in Scotland against annual influenza have not always reached vaccine uptake targets. Vaccine hesitancy
amongst health and social care professionals and students are less widely known especially concerning the Covid-19 vaccine. Given their roles as high priority recipients for such vaccines but also as advocates for vaccines amongst the public, vaccine views amongst health and social professionals and those in-training are important to consider. 
Aim: This study aimed to explore vaccine hesitancy amongst health and social care professionals and those in-training (students).
Methods: A mixed-methods online study was conducted which comprised a concurrent research design where quantitative and qualitative research data was collected simultaneously. An online quantitative survey was adapted from Freeman et al.’s (2020) 7-item Covid-19 Vaccine Hesitancy Scale and the 14-item Vaccine Complacency and Confidence Scale. Qualitative online focus groups were also conducted with a purposive sample of participants including health and social care professionals and students in order to explore vaccine hesitancy (delays or refusals) in more depth. Following informed consent procedures, these online discussions were recorded on MS Teams and the transcripts obtained for analysis were analysed by Thematic Analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006).
Results: Quantitative Data: There were 49 fully completed surveys in total (57 partially completed surveys) from a range of health and social care  professionals and students from one large Scottish University. Nearly 90% of respondents (44/49) reported having been vaccinated for Covid-19 with at least two doses of the vaccine at the time of the survey July – September 2022. There were 10% of respondents that reported not being vaccinated at all
for Covid-19 (5/49) and that rated strongly hesitant on the Vaccine Hesitancy Scale. The overall mean on the Vaccine Hesitancy Scale was 14.7 (SD 6.3) which compared similarly with the original Freeman study (2020 of 13.6; SD7.3 amongst a large sample in the general population).

Rights

This content is not covered by the Open Government Licence. Please see source record or item for information on rights and permissions.

Cite as

Downloadable citations

Identifiers

Repository URI

http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/4231307