Abstract

Purpose: The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic poses a serious threat to countless lives. Development of an efficient vaccination can help end the pandemic. Vaccine hesitancy/refusal is a huge issue that could stymie attempts to combat the disease. The goal of this study is to examine COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in Iraq where at the end of July 2021, only 7.4% of the population was vaccinated.

Participants and methods: This is a cross-sectional web-based study. A survey was used to assess knowledge, attitudes and practice (KAP) toward COVID-19. Willingness to be vaccinated against COVID-19 was assessed, with a logistic regression used to identify variables associated with vaccine acceptance. Motives for vaccination refusal/hesitation were reported.

Results: A total of 1542 participants (females = 56.7%) completed the questionnaire. Participants displayed high knowledge and good protective practices toward COVID-19 (median score = 15 out of 19 and 20 out of 25 respectively). 88.6% were willing to be vaccinated. Variables associated with vaccine acceptance included have not been infected with COVID-19 (OR=0.53, p=0.01), low- and moderate-income (ORs=0.42 and 0.63, p<0.01 respectively), low education level (OR=0.33, p-value<0.01) and perceived degree of vaccination importance (OR=1.30, P-value<0.01). The most mentioned reasons for vaccine refusal were concerns about vaccine safety and side effects (90.35%) and the need for more information about the vaccine (81.2%).

Conclusion: Participants showed high acceptance toward COVID-19 vaccination, nevertheless more efforts should be applied to overcome barriers mentioned by the participants.