Abstract
Background: The COVID-19 vaccine is intended to provide immunity against COVID-19 virus and has the potential to reduce mortality due to COVID-19 disease. Health authorities in every country are working towards achieving herd immunity against the COVID-19 pandemic. However, hesitancy on the vaccine threatens the vaccine uptake. Various reasons have been reported why people might not want to get a vaccine. The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence, knowledge, perceptions and attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccine uptake among adult patients who have been vaccinated and those who have not been vaccinated for COVID-19 in Lillian Ngoyi Community Health Centre (CHC). Furthermore, the study sought to examine the association between COVID-19 vaccine uptake and the knowledge, perceptions and attitudes of adult patients towards COVID-19 vaccines.
Methods: This observational, case-control quantitative study was conducted in Lillian Ngoyi CHC, Soweto, Johannesburg, South Africa. The research data was collected using a questionnaire through an in-person interviewer. The participants of the study were adult patients who had been vaccinated (cases) and those who had not been vaccinated (controls) attending the Lillian Ngoyi CHC. The sample size was calculated using EPINFO app version 7.2. The study had a sample of 374 participants, with 187 cases and 187 controls. The collected quantitative data was analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 29. Descriptive frequencies were based on prevalence, knowledge, perceptions and attitudes. Cross tabulation and Pearson’s chi-square tests were conducted to examine the relationships between variables of the study.
Results and discussion: Results of the study indicated that the majority of participants vaccinated for COVID-19 were females. The finding further shows that 62.6% of the vaccinated participants were within the age group of 18-35 years.More than 80% of the vaccinated participants indicated that they got vaccinated because they wanted to protect themselves against COVID-19 virus. Results indicated that 42.8% were not vaccinated due to fear of adverse effects of vaccines, about 37.4% indicated that COVID-19 vaccines are unsafe. To assess the knowledge of COVID-19 vaccine, most vaccinated participants were knowledgeable about how vaccines are administered. The value of the chi-square statistic was 21.578, 45.531 and 12.046 consecutively and the p-value for both knowledge and perceptions in relation to vaccine uptake appeared to be p <0.001, while the p-value of association between vaccine uptake and attitude was p < 0.017. Since the p-value was less than the alpha level of 0.05, we rejected the null hypothesis of the study because we had sufficient evidence to say that the results are statistically significant at alpha level of 0.05. The findings suggest that there was an association between participants’ vaccination status and study variables.
Conclusion and recommendations: Findings from the study measured the knowledge, perceptions and attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccine. From the findings
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of the study, it can be concluded that the prevalence rate of COVID-19 vaccine uptake was high among female participants. Educational level can be associated with COVID-19 vaccine knowledge and uptake. These findings provide an opportunity for public health authorities to provide measures for the improvement of the knowledge of adult patients towards COVID-19 vaccine through health education and promotion campaigns.
Keywords: COVID-19, Vaccine uptake,Knowledge, perceptions, attitudes