Document Type
Article
Publication Date
6-30-2022
Publication Title
Vaccines
Volume
10
Issue
7
First page number:
1
Last page number:
13
Abstract
The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 mutants, waning immunity, and breakthrough infections prompted the use of booster doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to fight against the pandemic. India started booster doses in January 2022 and it is critical to determine the intention of booster dose uptake and its correlates. Therefore, the current cross-sectional study aimed to investigate booster dose acceptability and associated predictors among the Indian population. A convenience sampling technique was utilized to recruit a sample of 687 Indian residents. A 55-item psychometric validated survey tool was used to assess booster dose acceptability, vaccine literacy and vaccine confidence. Univariate, bivariate, and multivariate statistical methods were used to analyze the data. Over 50% of participants reported their willingness to take the booster dose. Among the group not willing to take the booster dose (n = 303, 44.1%), a significantly larger proportion of respondents were unvaccinated with the primary series (12.2% vs. 5.2%, p < 0.001), had an annual income below 2.96 lacs/annum (52.8% vs. 33.1, p < 0.001), were residents of rural areas (38.0% vs. 23.2%, p < 0.001), were not living with vulnerable individuals (78.5% vs. 65.2%, p < 0.001) and did not have family/friends who had tested positive for COVID-19 (54.6% vs. 35.1%, p = 0.001). Demographic, vaccine variables and multi-theory model subscales to predict the initiation of booster dose among hesitant participants were statistically significant, R2 = 0.561, F (26, 244) = 11.978, p < 0.001; adjusted R2 = 0.514. Findings of this study highlight the need to develop evidence-based interventions to promote vaccine uptake, particularly among hard-to-reach communities living in developing countries.
Keywords
COVID-19; Vaccine hesitancy; Vaccine literacy; Functional literacy; Communicative literacy; Critical literacy; Vaccine confidence index; Herd immunity; Vaccine booster; SARS-CoV-2
Disciplines
Community Health and Preventive Medicine | Epidemiology | Health Services Research | International Public Health
File Format
File Size
588 KB
Language
English
Rights
IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Repository Citation
Achrekar, G. C.,
Batra, K.,
Urankar, Y.,
Batra, R.,
Iqbal, N.,
Choudhury, S. A.,
Hooda, D.,
Khan, R.,
Arora, S.,
Singh, A.,
Chirico, F.,
Sharma, M.
(2022).
Assessing COVID-19 Booster Hesitancy and Its Correlates: An Early Evidence from India.
Vaccines, 10(7),
1-13.
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/vaccines10071048
Included in
Community Health and Preventive Medicine Commons, Epidemiology Commons, Health Services Research Commons, International Public Health Commons