Willingness to receive COVID-19 vaccine among adults with chronic medical illnesses on follow-up at Jimma University Medical Center, Ethiopia: a cross- sectional study

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