Attitude of adults toward COVID-19 vaccination in India: An online cross-sectional study

Abstract

Introduction: As on January 12, 2022, India had 955,319 active cases and 484,655 COVID-19-related deaths. In this alarming situation, COVID-19 vaccination is the key in reducing morbidity and mortality. The vaccination could be a game-changer in India and it is critical to understand the attitude of the people toward currently available COVID-19 vaccines. Materials and Methods: An online cross-sectional study was conducted to assess the attitude of adults toward COVID-19 vaccination and reasons for vaccine acceptance/reluctance. A predesigned-pretested structured questionnaire was shared through WhatsApp with the target population and responses were recorded. The analysis was done using IBM Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) Statistics for Windows, Version 21.0. (developed by IBM Corp, Armonk, New York), and results were presented in percentages/proportions. Results: In the current study, 552 responses were analyzed. Most of the participants (58.5%) were between 18 and 30 years of age with 55.4% males. Among the study participants, 96.6% already had received COVID-19 vaccine and 2.5% were waiting for their turn to come, only 5 participants (0.9%) were not interested for the vaccine. The most common reason for vaccine acceptance was that the vaccinated people can protect unvaccinated people from COVID-19 (43.7%) by breaking the chain-of-transmission. The reasons for vaccine reluctance were noted as the available vaccines had low efficacy and were associated with severe adverse events. Conclusion and Recommendations: The current study showed a high COVID-19 vaccine acceptance and a very low vaccine reluctance among the study participants. The factors associated with reluctance could be addressed by proper Institutional Ethics Committee practices. Information from the current study could be used to plan a better vaccination drive in the country.