Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice among the Healthcare Professionals regarding the myths on COVID-19 vaccination - Demystified.

KUMAR S, L.; NAIK, Z.; PANWAR, A.; M, S.; KELUSKAR, V.; K, R. S. K.

Background: COVID-19 vaccine is the mighty weapon opted by all the countries across the globe in an attempt to eradicate the fatal COVID-19 pandemic. The myths on the COVID-19 vaccine are spreading widely, causing a hindrance to this noble preventive measure. The prevalence of such myths among the healthcare professionals may be toxic and deadly. Aim & Objectives: To assess the knowledge, attitude, and practice of the healthcare professionals regarding the myths on COVID-19 vaccination and to demystify them. Materials and Methods: An 18-item questionnaire evaluating knowledge, attitude, and practice based on the existing myths on COVID-19 vaccination was circulated through Google Forms among the 412 healthcare professionals of six disciplines belonging to a private University. The responses obtained were subjected to statistical analysis using SPSS 20 software package. Results: A total of 385 health professionals participated in this study. The majority of them had medium knowledge (165) and positive attitude (273) with the mean knowledge and attitude scores of 3.82 (SD-1.55) out of 6 and 4.3 (SD-1.58) out of 7 respectively. Even though 312 participants got vaccinated, 72 of them failed to receive it. The knowledge scores showed a high statistically significant difference among the participants of different designations (p=0.001), but not with gender, field, and staff with different years of experience (p>0.05). The attitude scores were statistically different among participants of fields and designation (p<0.05) but not among genders (p=0.31) and staff with different years of experience (p=0.87). Knowledge and attitude scores showed a positive linear correlation and a high statistically significant difference (p<0.001). Conclusion: This study recommends more enhanced education programs on COVID-19 vaccination for the health professionals and demands an improved knowledge, attitude, and practice among them to achieve the goal of 100% vaccination so as to completely eradicate the COVID-19 pandemic.