Abstract:
Background: People with chronic medical conditions are at elevated risk of developing severe
complications, and are thus at greater risk of death due to COVID-19. The COVID-19 vaccine is
an effective measure to manage the pandemic as it prevents severe illness and death.
Nevertheless, many people are hesitant to receive the COVID-19 vaccine due to fear of its side
effects. The aim of this study was to assess willingness to receive COVID-19 vaccination among
adult people with chronic medical illness at Jimma University Medical Center (JUMC) chronic
care follow-up clinic.
Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on randomly selected patients with chronic
medical conditions on follow-up at chronic care clinic of JUMC, Ethiopia. Data was collected
through patient interview using structured questionnaire. Collected data was cleaned, edited and
entered into Epidata version 3.2 and analyzed using SPSS Version 26. Adjusted Odds Ratio with
95% CI was used to measure strength of association. A P-value of <0.05 was used a level of
statistically significance.
Result: Among 410 patients with chronic medical illnesses, 273 (71.5%) were willing to receive
COVID-19 vaccine. Among participant who refuse vaccination, majority (85.1%) responded that
fear of side-effects was the reason for refusal followed by fear of unknown long-term effects
(10.3%). Participant with HIV (AOR= 7.938, 95% CI: 1.130-55.776 4.812), having previous
severe COVID-19 (AOR=38.960 95%CI 2.966-511.808) and perceived susceptibility of the
COVID-19 infection (AOR=5.781, 95% CI: 1.780-18.772) were found to be significantly
associated with willingness to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
Conclusion: This study showed most adult with chronic medical illnesses were willing to
receive the COVID-19 vaccine. Yet, given the risk of severe COVID-19 in these people, the
vaccine acceptance rate in this group of population is not yet satisfactory. Therefore, providing
health education for such group of patients is essential to improve COVID-19 vaccine
acceptance
