Preparedness of Health Professionals to Take COVID-19 Vaccination at Jugal Hospital, Harar, Ethiopia, 2021

Introduction: Worldwide, vaccine doubtfulness is a growing menace to health safety. The World Health Organization named it as one of the top ten fears to health in 2019. Substantial rejection of the COVID-19 vaccine by healthcare experts can produce a bad image of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination on the public because healthcare workers are pioneers for the general public. This research is aimed to assess the preparedness of health professionals to take COVID-19 vaccination in Jugal Hospital.
Methods: Hospital-based cross-sectional study was executed among health professionals from October 1 to October 15, 2021. The census method, applied for sampling method, was used. The data were collected using self-administered questionnaires. The data were explored using IBM SPSS software package version 20.0. Monovariate, bivariate, and multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed. In multivariate analysis, statistically significant variables were selected based on p-values (<0.05), and the adjusted odds ratio (AOR) was used to describe the strength of association with a 95% confidence interval (CI).
Results: Among the participants, 35.32% of health professionals wished to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, whereas the rest (64.68%) showed vaccine hesitancy. Preparedness to receive COVID-19 vaccination was significantly associated with sex (AOR=2.41; 95% CI: 1.240–4.845; p=0.013), professionals with a history of chronic illness (AOR=9.15; 95% CI: 2.02–12.17), and perceived degree of risk of COVID-19 infection (AOR=3.64; 95% CI: 2.26–6.79).
Discussion and Conclusion: Overall, this study showed low acceptance and high doubtfulness of the COVID-19 vaccine among health professionals in Jugal Hospital. Addressing uncertainties related to vaccine safety and giving more information on the safety of vaccines may be necessary to eliminate doubts.

Keywords: COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy; Healthcare professionals; Preparedness