Ijcp 13891
Ijcp 13891
Ijcp 13891
ABSTRACT
OBJECTİVE
In this study, we aim to investigate the thoughts and attitudes of individuals towards the future
COVID-19 vaccine.
METHODS
This descriptive study was carried out on the web between 10/06/2020 - 10/07/2020. The sample
constitutes all individuals above 18 years of age using social media and smartphone. The e-survey
form was shared by the researchers via the web for a month, and those who completed the survey
were included in the study and formed the sample of the research.
RESULTS
Seven hundred fifty-nine were participated. 49.7% of the participants stated to be vaccinated;
38.4% of them stated to be vaccinated their children against COVID-19; if the vaccine for
COVID-19 is developed. The request for the COVID-19 vaccine had relationship with gender,
occupation, health insurance, anxiety level, having children, willing to get vaccinated for their
children. “Afraid of the side effects of vaccine”, “don’t think it can be reliable as it will be a new
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through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process, which may lead to
differences between this version and the Version of Record. Please cite this article as doi:
10.1111/ijcp.13891
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vaccine” and “COVID-19 infection is a biological weapon and the vaccine will serve those who
Accepted Article
produce this virus” were the most common reasons for rejection of vaccine.
CONCLUSION
In our study afraid of the side effects of vaccine and not thinking it can be reliable as it will be a
new vaccine is the most reasons of indecision and rejection about COVID 19 vaccine. In order for
the future COVID 19 vaccination campaign to not fail, media, politicians, healthcare professionals
should closely follow the vaccination development processes, inform the public transparently and
consider public’s concerns.
Vaccination researches for SARS-CoV-2 are also ongoing in the large centers. The vaccines are
known to be effective in creating a long-lasting immune memory to control infectious diseases.
Vaccines currently prevent 2-3 million deaths per year. There is an urgent and important need to
manufacture and distribute enough safe and effective vaccine to immunize individuals in order to
protect the entire global community from the threat of morbidity and mortality from SARS-CoV-
2.
Forty nine point seven percent of the participants stated that if the vaccine for COVID-19 infection
is developed, they will be vaccinated against COVID-19. The most important reason for
willingness to be vaccinated is to be thinking that vaccination will be important not only for
him/herself or his/her children but also for protecting the health of people around him/her or
his/her children. This shows that people are aware that vaccines provide not only individual but
also social protection. Five point eight percent of the participants stated that they will be
vaccinated if the vaccine is free. Economic reasons are important too, also our study support this
issue.
INTRODUCTION
The COVID-19 infection, which the World Health Organization has declared as a “pandemic”
because it has spread to more than 114 countries, has caused more than 43.140.173 confirmed
cases and more than 1.155.235 deaths as of 25 October 2020 (1-3).
Developing drugs for SARS COV-2 is an important issue for the scientists and currently there is
no officially approved drugs to treat COVID-19 infection (1-3). In addition to the clinical research
of old and new drugs, vaccination researches for SARS-CoV-2 are also ongoing in the large
centers (4-5). The vaccines are known to be effective in creating a long-lasting immune memory to
control infectious diseases. Vaccines currently prevent 2-3 million deaths per year (4). Various
vaccines have been developed in pandemics such as the 1957, 1968, 1976, 1977 outbreaks and the
H5N1 outbreak (1997-1998), and the 2009 H1N1 outbreak (5). In the studies conducted in the
It is believed that with the availability of a safe and effective vaccine for COVID-19, a great
progress will be made in controlling the pandemic. On April 2, 2020 “ Vaccine and Drug
Development virtual conference" was held with coordination of Turkish COVID-19 platform in
Turkey. In the opening speech of the conference, Turkey’s Minister of Industry and Technology
said, "Under the COVID-19 Platform, there are seven different vaccine development projects and
seven different drug development projects that both chemical and biotechnological methods will
be applied"(7). More than a hundred companies or academic institutions around the world are
working on COVID-19 vaccines with strategies that include recombinant vectors, mRNA, DNA,
inactivated virus, live attenuated virus, virus-like particles, and protein subunits in lipid
nanoparticles (8). As of 19 October 2020, there are 44 candidate vaccines in the clinical evaluation
(9).
While studies on COVID-19 vaccine is ongoing, the vaccine hesitancy or refusal for vaccine-
preventable disease reverses the progress made in the fight for these diseases. Therefore, it is of
great importance to evaluate the perspective of the society in this regard. In this study, we aim to
investigate the thoughts and attitudes of individuals towards the future COVID-19 vaccine.
METHODS
This descriptive study was carried out on the web between 10/06/2020 - 10/07/2020. The research
population constitutes all individuals above 18 years of age using social media and smartphone in
Turkey. The e-survey form was shared by the researchers, and those who completed the survey
were included in the study and formed the sample of the research. The survey form was shared on
whatsapp, facebook and instagram. The target number of people was reached by the snowball
method. Sampling calculation has not been made and people answered the questionnaire within
the specified period were included in the study. It is aimed to reach at least 500 adults.
The questionnaire to be used in the research was prepared by the researchers, there are 24
questions in total. The questionnaire contains 7 questions for sociodemographic characteristics
(gender, age, occupation etc.) and 2 questions for health conditions. There are 3 questions about
COVID-19 infection, 12 questions about participants' opinions about vaccines and future COVID-
19 vaccine. Participants were asked to rate their anxiety levels against COVID-19 between 0-10.
Data Analysis
Mean ± standard deviation for the variables that were continuous from the demographic
information of the participants, and frequency tables for the qualitative data was created. The
consistency of continuous variables to normal distribution was examined using visual (histogram
and possible graphics) and analytical methods (Kolmogorov-Smirnov / Shapiro-Wilk). Correlation
coefficients and statistical significance were calculated by Pearson test when both variables were
normally distributed in correlation analyzes, or by Spearman test for at least one normal
distribution or ordinal variables. Chi-Square test was used to investigate the relationships between
qualitative data. Differences between group values of continuous variables were investigated with
t test, ANOVA test or tests with their nonparametric equivalents. The value of α = 0.05 was
chosen as the level of error and probability values obtained from statistical analysis were
interpreted accordingly. Statistical analysis was done with SPSS 23 package program.
The study was conducted in accordance with the principles of the Helsinki Declaration related to
conducting clinical trials on humans, and the research proposal was approved by the Ethics
Committee of the XXX University with the number of GO 20/556 at June 2020.
RESULTS
Seven hundred fifty-nine participants were participated. The mean age of the participants is 32.41
± 9.92 (min = 18; max = 81) and 62.8% were female. Detailed sociodemographic characteristics of
participants were at Table 1.
35.9
49.7
8.6
5.8
Of the participants 0.8% (n = 6) had COVID-19 infections, 17.1% (n = 130) of their relatives had
COVID-19 infections. The average level of anxiety for COVID 19 infection was 6.04 ± 2.30 (min
= 0; max = 10). COVID-19 infection measure practices of the participants are presented in Table
2.
Thirty point six percent (n = 232) of participants had children between the ages of 0-18, 6.2% (n =
14) of those rejected any of the vaccines within the National Vaccination Program for their
children and 58.5% (n = 134) of them were getting their children vaccines which were not at
National Vaccination Program and had paid (meningococcal vaccine, influenza vaccine, HPV
vaccine, etc.). Of the participants 38.4% stated that if the vaccine for COVID-19 infection is
developed, they will be vaccinated their children against COVID-19. Vaccination requests of
participants for their children against COVID-19 were at Graphic 2.
14.8
3.5
The relationship of some factors and vaccination requests of participants for themselves and for
their children against COVID-19 are presented at Table 3. It was seen that women had more
negative opinions (don't get vaccinated/ undecided) about getting vaccinated than men (p=0.001).
While students and health professionals were more willing to vaccinate, those who did not work
stated that they were more undecided than other occupational groups (p=0.026). Those who have
SSI or private health insurance (p=0.004), who got seasonal flu vaccine (p<0.001), who had
children (p=0.048) and those who were thinking about getting their child COVID-19 vaccine
(p<0.001) stated that they were more willing to get vaccinated than others. As the level of anxiety
increases, the willingness to get vaccinated increases (p=0.010). With the increasing level of
education, the participants' thoughts about getting vaccinated for their children was increased
(p<0.001). Those who have SSI or private health insurance (p=0.006), who got seasonal flu
vaccine (p=0.023) stated that they were more willing to get vaccinated than others.
Table 3. The relationship of some factors and vaccination requests of participants for
themselves and for their children against COVID-19
“Afraid of the side effects of vaccine”, “don’t think it can be reliable as it will be a new vaccine”
and “COVID-19 infection is a biological weapon and the vaccine will serve those who produce
this virus” were the most common reasons for rejection of vaccine both for themselves and for
their children. The reasons of undecision and rejection about COVID-19 vaccine is presented at
Table 4.
DISCUSSION
The current estimated mortality rate of SARS-CoV-2 is around 6.9% but varies among different
countries (10). There is an urgent and important need to manufacture and distribute enough safe
and effective vaccine to immunize individuals in order to protect the entire global community
from the threat of morbidity and mortality from SARS-CoV-2 (11). Also in our study 49.7% of the
participants stated that if the vaccine for COVID-19 infection is developed, they will be
vaccinated against COVID-19. The most important reason for willingness to be vaccinated is to be
thinking that vaccination will be important not only for him/herself or his/her children but also for
protecting the health of people around him/her or his/her children. This shows that people are
aware that vaccines provide not only individual but also social protection. The second reason for
being vaccinated is to be thinking that vaccination will be important to protect against COVID-19
disease.
However, there is not any vaccine currently licensed for any of the other coronaviruses affecting
humans. These are; SARS-CoV-1, MERS-CoV, and minor cold viruses. Economic reasons are of
course a major factor for the absence of these vaccines. But despite economic challenges, vaccine
design is also a challenge. Immune responses to natural coronavirus infections can be short lived,
and some trial vaccines for SARS-CoV-1 raised safety concerns in animal models (12).
In our study we investigated the thoughts and attitudes of individuals towards the future COVID-
19 vaccine. Eight point six percent of the participants stated that if the vaccine for COVID-19
infection is developed, they will not be vaccinated against COVID-19 and 35.9% of them are
undecided. Fourteen point eight percent of the participants stated that if the vaccine for COVID-19
infection is developed, they will not be vaccinated their children against COVID-19 and 43.2% of
the patents are undecided. In addition, people who had children and who were thinking about
getting COVID-19 vaccine to their children were more willing to get vaccinated than others. With
the increasing level of education, the participants' thoughts about getting vaccinated for their
children was increased. People are more reluctant to vaccinate their children than their own
In our study 5.8% of the participants stated that they will be vaccinated if the vaccine is free.
Economic reasons are important too, also our study support this issue; not working people were
more undecided and those who have social insurance (SSI) or private health insurance were more
willing to get vaccinated. Studies in the literature, lower price barrier and higher ability to pay
were associated with higher willingness to pay (23-24). But the decision to add a new vaccine to
the national immunization program requires a very extensive and comprehensive assessment.
Decision making process also influenced by social values, perceptions and political approaches
(25).
Another important result in our study was that, participants who got seasonal flu vaccine were
more willing to get vaccinated and also to get vaccinated their children against COVID-19 than
others. Seasonal flu vaccine is salaried in Turkey. Also people could have paid for seasonal flu
The authors declared no conflict of interest concerning the research, authorship, or publication of
this article.
Informed consent
Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
REFERENCES
TOTAL
Number (n) Percentage (%)
Gender:
Female 477 62.8
Male 282 37.2
Educational status:
Not Literate 2 0.3
Literate 3 0.4
Primary school 21 2.8
High school 83 10.9
University 483 63.6
Master / PhD 167 22
Marital Status
Married 354 46.6
Single 405 53.4
Profession
Not working 96 12.6
Student 104 13.7
Health employee 308 40.6
Monthly income
<1000 103 13.6
1000-2000 71 9.4
2000-3000 82 10.8
3000-4000 72 9.5
> 4000 431 56.8
Health insurance type
SSI 623 82.1
Special 49 6.5
Other 50 6.6
Family type
Nuclear family 690 90.9
Extended family 69 9.1
Chronic disease state
Yes 139 18.3
No 620 81.7
Table 3. The relationship of some factors and vaccination requests of participants against COVID 19
The
condition of
having paid
vaccinations
for the child