Background: Health professionals' willingness to accept the COVID-19 vaccine is very important, and evidence suggests that only a limited proportion of health-care workers were ready to accept a COVID-19 vaccine, which is very low when compared with the risk of the disease. This study aimed to assess health professionals' acceptability and associated factors in Wollega University referral hospital, Western Ethiopia.
Methods: An institution-based cross-sectional study was conducted among health-care workers in Wollega University referral hospital from March 26-28, 2021. The data were collected by using a self-administered questionnaire. Epi-data version 3.2 was used for data entry, and STATA version 14 was used for data analysis. The binary logistic regression model was employed to determine factors associated with the acceptability of the COVID-19 vaccine. Adjusted Odds Ratio (AOR) with 95% confidence intervals was computed and statistical significance was declared at a 5% level (p-value <.05).
Results: A total of 191 health professionals have participated in the study. The study indicates that 65.4% (95% CI: 58.6%, 72.2%) of health professionals had the willingness to receive the COVID-19 vaccine if available. Age of health professionals (AOR = 3.58, 95% CI: 1.38, 8.38), knowledge of the COVID-19 vaccine (AOR = 2.98, 95% CI: 1.22, 7.23), and perception of COVID 19 vaccine (AOR = 5.71, 95% CI: 2.50, 13.00) were significantly associated with vaccine acceptability.
Conclusions and recommendations: Nearly, two-thirds of health professionals were willing to accept the COVID-19 vaccine, which is low. In general, continuous communication and health education have to be provided to enhance overall awareness of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Keywords: COVID-19; Ethiopia; health professionals; vaccine; willingness.