covid-19 vaccine acceptance and its risk factors in iranian health workers 2021

Background: ensuring vaccine acceptance in societies is a growing challenge for healthcare systems worldwide. this study aimed to identify factors associated with vaccine acceptance rates. methods: this cross-sectional study was conducted as a national web-based survey from february 9th-13th, 2021, just before the release of the covid-19 vaccine in shiraz, iran. independent variables included age, gender, occupation, history of covid- 19 infection, underlying diseases, and source of information. the willingness to be vaccinated was the dependent variable. a logistic regression analysis was performed to determine the relationship between different variables and the willingness to receive the covid-19 vaccine. the significance level was set at less than 0.05. the data were analyzed using spss software version 21. results: of 2,699 healthcare respondents, 70.3% indicated a willingness to receive the covid-19 vaccine, of whom 49.2% preferred to receive a foreign vaccine and 24.68% desired to receive an iranian vaccine. the women were more willing to receive the vaccine (67.6%) than the men (78.2%). based on the results of logistic regression, gender (p<0.001) and job (p=0.005) were the most important associating factors to the willingness to receive the covid-19 vaccine. conclusion: although the majority of participants were willing to receive the covid-19 vaccine, 29.6% were not yet ready. women’s healthcare providers were more hesitant to recommend the vaccine. as a result, the findings of this study can help policymakers and decision-makers in the field of health, treatment, and prevention of covid-19 in raising the level of vaccination awareness among healthcare workers.