Title:Attitudes and Acceptance of the Palestinian Population Towards COVID-19 Health Precautions and Vaccinations: A Cross-Sectional Study
Volume: 24
Issue: 15
Author(s): Anas Hamdan*, Mustafa Ghanim*, Rami Mosleh and Yazun Jarrar
Affiliation:
- Department of Allied and Applied Medical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, An-Najah National University,
Nablus, Palestine
- Department of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, An-Najah
National University, Nablus, Palestine
Keywords:
COVID-19, vaccination, acceptance, universal precautions, attitudes, awareness.
Abstract:
Background: COVID-19 is a new pandemic and the best protection against this infection
is by vaccination.
Aims: This study aims to assess the commitment to COVID-19 health precautions and willingness
to receive vaccination among the Palestinian population.
Methods: An online-based survey was carried out for an observational cross-sectional study. A total
of 1367 participants were recruited conveniently between February and June 2021. To carry out
comparisons, Mann-Whitney or Kruskal–Wallis was used for numerical variables and chi-square or
Fisher's exact for categorical. Multiple logistic regression was used to evaluate health precautions
and multinomial logistic regression was used to observe willingness for vaccination.
Results: The commitment to the majority of health precautions was predicted by perceiving
COVID-19 threat, educational level, and city residency (p < 0.05). Social distancing and sterilizer
usage were associated with city residency (p < 0.001). Students, males, and unemployed participants
were less committed to health precautions (p < 0.05). Vaccination willingness was less predicted
by the perception of an ineffective vaccine (p < 0.001), perceiving no threat of COVID-19 (p
< 0.05) or perception of threat for old/or chronic diseases (p < 0.05), employed participants (p <
0.05), without chronic diseases (p < 0.05), and not committed to wearing a mask (p < 0.001).
Conclusion: COVID-19 threat perception, high education level, and city residency predict more
commitment to health precautions, in contrast to male students and unemployed participants. On
the other hand, having no chronic diseases, perception of ineffective vaccines, unperceived
COVID-19 threat, and unwillingness to wear masks predicted less vaccination acceptance. Therefore,
it is critical to increase awareness about the COVID-19 threat, health precautions, and vaccination
efficacy. This study is cross-sectional. Future works concerning changes in Attitudes toward
COVID-19 health precautions and vaccination should be encouraged, including vaccinated
participants.