Determinants of COVID-19 Vaccine Acceptance in Ardabil: a Web-Based Survey

COVID-19 has harmed people's lives and efforts are being made to speed up vaccinations. The growing problem of vaccine uncertainty may affect the uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine. The objectives of this study were to examine the determinants of COVID-19 vaccine acceptance.

From July 3 to September 25, 2021, we conducted a web-based, cross-sectional study among the citizens of Ardabil with a snowball sampling strategy under a highly restricted environment. A questionnaire was designed and filled out by 768 participants through social media and email. Associations between COVID-19 vaccine acceptance and determinants were explored using the chi-squared test. Key determinants that predict vaccine acceptance among respondents were modeled through logistic regression analysis.

Of the 932 survey invitees, 768 responded to the questionnaire (response rate, 82.4%). The majority (55.2%) of the study participants were female. Of the 768 respondents, 486 (63.2%) showed interest to accept the COVID-19 vaccine. Willingness to get the vaccine is relatively high among older age groups (59.4% among 40+ year old), being married (56.9%), and city dwellers participants (83.09%). In multivariate model, respondents who were above 40 years (OR: 0.7; 95% CI:0.5-0.94), and married (OR: 1.43; 95% CI: 0.97-2.09) were significantly associated with vaccine acceptance (p<0.05). Besides, people having trust in the health system and vaccine were most likely to accept the vaccine (OR: 1.26; 95% CI: 1.01-1.56), and those having a higher perceived risk of acquiring infection were 4.83 times (OR: 4.83; 95% CI: 3.78-6.17) higher odds of accepting the vaccine.

Our study identified religious/personal beliefs and risk perceptions as the most important predictors that would be affecting COVID-19 vaccine uptake.