COVID-19 Vaccine Education (CoVE) for Health and Care Workers to Facilitate Global Promotion of the COVID-19 Vaccines.

Holly Blake,Aaron Fecowycz,Wendy Jones,Hollie Starbuck

doi:10.3390/ijerph19020653

Abstract

The COVID-19 vaccine is being rolled out globally. High and ongoing public uptake of the vaccine relies on health and social care professionals having the knowledge and confidence to actively and effectively advocate it. An internationally relevant, interactive multimedia training resource called COVID-19 Vaccine Education (CoVE) was developed using ASPIRE methodology. This rigorous six-step process included: (1) establishing the aims, (2) storyboarding and co-design, (3) populating and producing, (4) implementation, (5) release, and (6) mixed-methods evaluation aligned with the New World Kirkpatrick Model. Two synchronous consultations with members of the target audience identified the support need and established the key aim (Step 1: 2 groups: n = 48). Asynchronous storyboarding was used to co-construct the content, ordering, presentation, and interactive elements (Step 2: n = 14). Iterative two-stage peer review was undertaken of content and technical presentation (Step 3: n = 23). The final resource was released in June 2021 (Step 4: >3653 views). Evaluation with health and social care professionals from 26 countries (survey, n = 162; qualitative interviews, n = 15) established that CoVE has high satisfaction, usability, and relevance to the target audience. Engagement with CoVE increased participants’ knowledge and confidence relating to vaccine promotion and facilitated vaccine-promoting behaviours and vaccine uptake. The CoVE digital training package is open access and provides a valuable mechanism for supporting health and care professionals in promoting COVID-19 vaccination uptake.

Highlights

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) a pandemic in March 2020
This includes data from 162 online survey participants, and qualitative interviews conducted with 15 participants, (13 health or social care professionals, 3 students; 1 held both roles)
Interview participants were nurses (n = 12), social scientists (n = 2), occupational health specialists (n = 1) and COVID-19 vaccinators (n = 2), who identified as British, Filipino, Polish, Lebanese, and Pakistani

Summary

Introduction

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) a pandemic in March 2020. COVID-19 is caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). As of June 2021, there were over 176 million cases, and 3.82 million confirmed deaths attributed to COVID-19 worldwide [1]. In response to its high mortality and rapid spread, new vaccines have been developed and tested at an unprecedented pace, described as the ‘prime weapon’ in the fight against escalating daily death rates [2]. The success of COVID-19 vaccination programmes relies on high population coverage, and on high rates of acceptance amongst the general public and healthcare workers. A recent systematic review including studies from 33 countries showed that vaccine acceptance is highly variable, ranging from 23.6% to 97% in the general public [3]

Results

Discussion

Conclusion