Attitudes and behaviors of Ankara University school of medicine hospitals employees against COVID-19 vaccines

Introduction Healthcare workers play the most important role in promoting vaccination to the public, and influence individual's decision on whether to be vaccinated or not. Additionally, the vaccination of healthcare workers against COVID-19 is considered to be a priority. However, attitudes and behaviors of healthcare professionals towards vaccines affect vaccine acceptance rate. This study is aimed at evaluating healthcare workers' attitudes and behaviors of COVID-19 vaccination in employees of Ankara University Faculty of Medicine. Material and methods The study was carried out with 115 academic and 115 administrative personnel. The information of the participants was obtained through an face to face questionnaire. The questionnaire was developed using data from the literature. The questionnaire included demographic data (age, gender, level of education, marital status, income, presence of chronic disease), COVID-19 vaccination status, COVID-19 perception level, COVID-19 perception level, history of vaccine hesitancy, reasons for COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. The attitudes of the participants towards the vaccine were evaluated with The Attitudes Towards the COVID-19 Vaccine Scale (ATV-COVID-19). Results The median age of the 230 participants included in the study was 39 years (19-58 years). 60.4% of the participants were female and 39.6% were male. 35.2% and 76.1% of the employees had not previously received a seasonal influenza and pneumococcus vaccine. 3.9% of the employees had a history of vaccine hesitancy. 86.1% of the participants had received a full dose of vaccine (at least 3 doses of vaccine). This rate was 94.8% for academics and 77.4% for administrative personnel (p<0.001). The history of vaccine hesitancy was less in academics, compared to administrative personnel (p=0.018). The positive attitude towards COVID-19 vaccines was higher in academic personnel (p<0.001), those with high education level (p<0.001), high income level (p<0.001), fear of catching COVID-19 (p<0.001), who had a previous seasonal influenza vaccine (p=0.009) and had received a full dose of vaccine (p<0.001). As the positive attitude of the participants towards the vaccine increased, the number of COVID-19 vaccine doses increased (p<0.001). The most common reasons for COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among participant, were fear of the side effects of the vaccine (62.5%), not being reliable (46.9%) because the vaccines were new, and not trusting the companies producing the vaccine (28.1%). Conclusion Although acceptance rates of the COVID-19 vaccines and attitudes of academic staff are mostly positive, administrative staff should be encouraged about vaccine acceptance. In this regard, additional educational programs are needed for healthcare workers. By increasing the positive attitude towards the vaccine, the vaccine acceptance rates among healthcare workers will increase. Key words: Attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccine, Vaccine acceptance, Vaccine hesitancy, Healthcare workers