C.I.P.S. (Coronavirus Italy Population Survey) Draft

Abstract

Background: The Sars-CoV-2 2019 disease (COVID-19) has spread across the world and it is now a world-wide health burden. In the absence of an effective therapy, the latest vaccines developments are the only weapons against this overwhelming pathogen. Nevertheless, so that the vaccine will work, it is necessary that a large portion of population must accept to receive the vaccine in order to reach the “Herd Immunity”. Methods: The C.I.P.S. (Coronavirus Italy Population Survey) draft is a cross-sectional study with the purpose of defining the potential acceptance rate of a COVID-19 vaccination among Italian citizens. In order to the above, we created an online-based survey and then it has been shared by social-medias, local newspapers, students and colleagues to reach a heterogeneous cohort. Objectives: The primary end point of the study is to evaluate the real percentage of people, who want to receive the vaccine. Moreover, the C.I.P.S. draft has the purpose to analyse the differences in the intention to take COVID-19 vaccine between gender, region and age groups. Finally, we want to assess what are some causes that push Italian citizens to disagree with vaccination. Results: We examined a number of 1087 Italian citizens throughout January and February 2021. Overall, the percentage of willingness to receive the vaccine is 70·4% and there are several significant differences in the intention to be vaccinated between regions, sex groups and different ages. Finally, we found a positive correlation between better sources of information and intention to get vaccinated, an indirect correlation between risk perception and safety profile and willingness to accept the vaccine and a negative correlation between age and the intention to take the vaccine. Conclusions: C.I.P.S. draft shows how vaccine hesitancy is diffuse among Italian citizens. These results emphasize the need to take strong decisions to change this trend now. Indeed, this is the right time to make these changes because we have a loaded weapon pointed at the virus, but if we do not choose to pull the trigger, it will be useless.Funding Statement: NoneDeclaration of Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest in the collection, analyses or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.Ethics Approval Statement: The study has been performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and was approved by an independent ethical commission of the Università della Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”, Naples (Italy).