Investigating the Knowledge and Attitude of Health Care Workers of Masih Deneshvari Hospital towards Covid-19 Vaccination

Introduction and purpose: Vaccine skepticism and refusal to vaccinate against infectious diseases have been recognized by the World Health Organization as one of the ten global health threats in 2019. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the knowledge and attitude of medical staff towards vaccination in order to advance immunization coverage. Methods: This analytical cross-sectional study was conducted to evaluate the knowledge and attitudes toward the Covid-19 Vaccination using a researcher-made questionnaire. In this research, 455 cases were selected via the convenience sampling method from among all the physicians and staff of Dr. Masih Deneshvari Hospital from February 2019 until the end of vaccination for four months. The obtained data were analyzed in SPSS software (version 22). Results: A total of 455 people participated in this study. The mean age of subjects was 36.2±8.99 years. Regarding gender, 50.6% of the participants were female. It was found that 44.8% of cases believed in vaccination, 28.6% of them considered Vaccination to be safe, and 29.9% of them considered Vaccination to be effective. The participants' knowledge of the benefits and side effects of the vaccine was reported as 24.2%. In examining the mean scores of the questionnaire questions, the highest score was related to recommending family members to get vaccinated (2.54±0.58), and the lowest score was related to the role of the media in deciding on Vaccination (1.80±0.72). Conclusion: As evidenced by the results of this study, the treatment staff's attitude towards Vaccination was average, and they often did not have any attitude toward the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine. Furthermore, participants' knowledge about the benefits and side effects of the vaccine was reported to be weak, highlighting a need to increase the level of awareness among the treatment staff regarding the injection of Vaccination in emerging diseases