Investigation of perception of health and attitudes towards the COVİD-19 vaccine: The example of healthcare professionals

The aim of this study is to determine the health perception of health workers and their attitudes towards the COVID-19 Vaccine, and to examine the relationship between health perception and vaccine attitude. The descriptive and correlational study was conducted in a city hospital between January and June 2022. The sample of the study consisted of 323 healthcare professionals, and the data were collected by face-to-face interview technique using the sociodemographic data form, the Health Perception Scale (HPS) and the Attitudes towards COVID-19 Vaccine Scale (ATV-COVID-19). In the analysis of the data, number, percentage, normal distribution tests, Pearson correlation analysis, independent variables t test, One-Way Analysis of Variance, Kruskall Wallis H test and corrected Bonferroni test were used. 35.3% of health workers are male, 61.9% are married, 53.9% have children, 86.1% of health workers evaluate their health as good, 19.5% have chronic diseases, 74% have moderate socio-economic status. It was determined that 61.9% chose their profession voluntarily, 36.5% worked for 16 years or more, 61% were nurses and 31.0% worked in surgical clinics. Health perception scale mean scores of health care workers who are physicians are higher than those of health workers who are nurses and midwives, and the health perception scale mean scores of health workers who work in internal clinics are higher than those of health workers whose departments are emergency, operating rooms and intensive care units. was found to be (p<.05). It has been determined that the ATV-COVID-19 negative attitude, ATV-COVID-19 positive attitude dimensions and the ATV-COVID-19 score averages of the health workers who are midwives by profession are higher than those of the health workers who are nurses (p<.05). A positive correlation was found between HPS control center with ATV-COVID-19, and a negative relationship was found between HPS Self-awareness dimension and ATV-COVID-19 (p<.05). It has been determined that the health perceptions of healthcare professionals are high and their attitudes towards the COVID-19 vaccine are at a positive level. It is thought that the study is a guide for intervention studies to be created on vaccine applications.