Healthcare (Nov 2021)

COVID-19 Delta Variant: Perceptions, Worries, and Vaccine-Booster Acceptability among Healthcare Workers

  • Khalid Alhasan,
  • Fadi Aljamaan,
  • Mohamad-Hani Temsah,
  • Fatimah Alshahrani,
  • Rolan Bassrawi,
  • Ali Alhaboob,
  • Rasha Assiri,
  • Shuliweeh Alenezi,
  • Ali Alaraj,
  • Reham I. Alhomoudi,
  • Mohammed A. Batais,
  • Lama Al-Eyadhy,
  • Rabih Halwani,
  • Naif AbdulMajeed,
  • Ahmed Al-Jedai,
  • Abdulrahman Senjab,
  • Ziad A. Memish,
  • Sarah Al-Subaie,
  • Mazin Barry,
  • Jaffar A. Al-Tawfiq

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare9111566
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 9, no. 11
p. 1566

Abstract

Read online

Background: As the COVID-19 Delta variant has spread across the globe, healthcare workers’ (HCWs) knowledge, worries, and vaccine booster acceptance should be assessed. Methods: Online questionnaires aimed at HCWs in Saudi Arabia were distributed between 9 and 12 August 2021, aiming to evaluate HCWs’ perceptions and worries about the Delta variant as well as their feelings about receiving a booster-vaccine. Results: A total of 1279 HCWs participated, with 51.1% being physicians and 41.7% nurses. 92.5% were aware of the emergence of the Delta variant. Still, only 28.7% were found to have sufficient knowledge of the variant, and their level of worry about it was higher than their level of worry about the Alpha variant (2.32/5 versus 1.79/5). The main information sources cited by the participants were social media (50.5%), while 30.5% used scientific journals. Overall, 55.3% were willing to receive a vaccine booster, while one third would have preferred to receive a new mRNA vaccine specifically developed for the Delta variant. Factors associated with vaccine booster acceptance were receiving both vaccination doses (p = 0.008), believing that the Pfizer-BioNTech BNT162b2 vaccine is effective against variants (p p Conclusions: A high percentage of HCWs were aware of the Delta variant, but only a small fraction had decent quality of knowledge about it. The participants exhibited high worry levels and showed a modest acceptance of receiving a vaccine booster dose. These results should encourage public health officials to scale up educational efforts to disseminate reliable information about the different variants and provide recommendations about receiving a vaccine booster. Further research on methods to alleviate HCWs’ worries about emerging variants is warranted.

Keywords