Perception and Acceptance of COVID-19 Vaccination among Patients in a Tertiary Hospital in South-East Nigeria

Aims: To determine the perception and acceptance of COVID-19 vaccination among patients in a tertiary eye hospital.

Study Design: A cross-sectional hospital-based study.

Place and Duration of Study: Guinness Eye Centre Onitsha, South-East Nigeria between 1st to 29th June 2021

Methodology: An interviewer-administered semi-structured pretested questionnaire on sociodemographic, knowledge, perception and acceptance on coronavirus disease and its vaccine was used to collect data on eligible patients. Data obtained was analyzed with SPSS version 23 (IBM Corporation, Armonk, NY, USA). Descriptive statistics including frequency tables, mean and standard deviation was used to present categorical variables.

Results: A total of 386 patients were interviewed comprising 157 (40.7%) males and 229(59.3%) females, and aged 18 to 93 years (mean age of 44.73±18.49 years). Two hundred and fifty-eight (66.8%) patients knew of COVID-19 vaccine availability in Nigeria, with 90 (34.9%) not knowing where they could obtain the vaccine. Only 34 (8.8%) had taken the vaccine. Uptake of COVID-19 vaccine is strongly associated with patient’s perception of COVID-19 being real (P=0.006), patients trust in the information head about the vaccine (P=0.001), and their trust on the efficacy and safety of the COVID-19 vaccine (P˂0.001). Acceptance of COVID-19 vaccine is not significantly associated with their faith in the previous human vaccinations(P=0.076).

Conclusion: The uptake of COVID-19 vaccine in the study group is low. Therefore, there is an urgent need for re-strategizing on various ways to enlighten the public and widen the scope of information dissemination.