Physicians Concerns toward COVID-19 Vaccines

Abstract

Introduction: Vaccination is a successful method of controlling infectiousviral diseases, which may play a major role in virus spread limitation.Aimof Work: To assess the concerns of Egyptian physicians towards COVID-19vaccines and its associating factors. Materials and Methods: A crosssectionalstudy was conducted on 1026 Egyptian physicians; through a selfadministeredquestionnaire covering socio-demographic data and physicianconcerns toward COVID-19 vaccine was used. Results: Among 1026 studiedphysicians (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 halfof physicians (56.9%) worked at a secondary care level and 21.7% of themworked at a tertiary care level, 48.8% of participants were specialists and19.3% 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 notattend COVID-19 vaccine awareness campaigns. Binary logistic regressionanalysis showed that the significant independent predictors of high concernscore were working in a COVID-19 isolation unit, work experience more than10 years, history of COVID 19 infection, and attending vaccine awarenesscampaigns (odds ratio, 3.15, 2.0, 2.88 & 3.5 respectively). Conclusion:Healthcare workers’ concern score toward COVID-19 vaccine is of primeimportance as it drives them to accept or refuse to take the vaccine and HCWswere considered as a confident source of health information and advice to thepublic. The modifiable factor that improves vaccine concern was attendingCOVID-19 awareness campaigns about COVID-19 vaccine, so continuing andincreasing awareness campaigns about COVID 19 vaccine is warranted.