Prevalence of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among dentists in Turkey

Abstract

Background: Although dentists are among high-risk groups for COVID-19 due to their practice requiring to be in close proximity to patients’s oral cavities, there is a clear lack of studies on the frequency of hesitancy towards COVID-19 vaccines and the factors that influence the said hesitancy. This study aims to determine the factors causing hesitancy to receive COVID-19 vaccines in dentists and the frequency of the hesitancy. Methods: The universe of this online cross-sectional survey was 23,664. Participants were then selected from the association’s member list using the numbers table. Dentists were selected by random sampling method and the sample size was 458. SPSS 22.0 for Windows was used for the data analysis. Chi-square test was used in the comparison analysis of categorical variables, and the statistical significance level was set as p<0.05. Results: Of the 458 dentists participating in the study, the mean age was 38±10.5, 133 (29.0%) were male and 325 (71.0%) were female. 59 (12.9%) dentists stated that they have not been vaccinated with the COVID-19 vaccine, 399 (87.1%) participants stated that they have. Conclusions: In this study, 87.1% of dentists in Turkey stated that they have been vaccinated with the COVID-19 vaccine; proving that there is no vaccine hesitation among dentists in Turkey.