COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy Among Medical and Health Science Students Attending Wolkite University in Ethiopia

Background: Medical and health science students are among the frontline health care workers who are at high risk of acquiring COVID-19 infection during their clinical attachments and future career. As health care providers, they are expected to promote and administer the COVID-19 vaccine and counsel vaccine-hesitant patients. It is, therefore, imperative to assess COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among medical and health science students. Thus, this study aimed to assess COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and its associated factors among medical and health science students of Wolkite University.

Method: An institutional-based cross-sectional study design was conducted among 420 medical and health science students attending Wolkite University from March 1 to 30, 2021. Simple random sampling technique was used to select study participants. Self-administered and structured questionnaires were used to collect data. Data were entered into Epi-Data version 4.2.0 and exported to SPSS version 23 software package for further analysis. Bivariable and multivariable analysis was used to identify associated factors. P values <0.05 result were considered as a statistically significant association.

Results: The level of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy was 41.2% (95% CI; 35.2%-50.4%). Student age ≤23 years were 1.9 times more likely vaccine hesitant [aOR = 1.94, 95% CI; 1.14-3.28], being female were 1.7 times more likely vaccine hesitant [aOR = 1.76, 95% CI; 1.14-2.72], resided in rural area were 1.6 times more likely vaccine hesitant [aOR = 1.63, 95% CI; 1.06-2.49], source of information from social media were 2.7 times more likely vaccine hesitant [aOR = 2.68, 95% CI; 1.58-4.54], and good practice to COVID-19 mitigation measures were 47% less likely vaccine hesitant [aOR = 0.53, 95% CI; 0.34-0.83] compared to their counterpart.

Conclusions: COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy is found to be high. Therefore, students are advised to receive COVID-19 vaccine information from government lead mass media (i.e. television and radio), increase awareness and adherence to COVID-19 mitigation measures is recommended.