Measuring vaccine hesitancy and examining reasons behind vaccination choices for the COVID‑19 vaccines in patients followed in primary care clinics
The discovery of vaccines has been essential in the improvement of health and life expectancy. However, the decision of whether or not to get a vaccine is with the patients and many factors can make people hesitate. While most of the population is vaccinated already, parts of the population remain hesitant. It is now time to verify what can be done in primary care settings to help patients increase trust in COVID‑19 vaccine, and work with them to increase that trust. We propose a project with three objectives: 1) To measure vaccination coverage and the importance of different factors influencing the decisions for COVID‑19 and flu vaccination in adults followed in family medicine clinics in Quebec; 2) To identify factors associated with non-vaccination and incomplete COVID‑19 vaccination, in order to develop interventions to increase vaccine confidence and acceptance; and 3) To co-design interventions to increase COVID‑19 vaccine confidence and acceptance for and with specific subgroups identified in Aims 1 and 2, with a patient and community engagement approach. To do this, we will recruit 1185 adult patients followed in primary care clinics. Data will be gathered through a questionnaire completed with a research assistant and a chart review. We will then use this information to identify subgroups with more hesitancy to get the COVID‑19 vaccines and will conduct workshops to co-design interventions to increase trust in the vaccines with these communities. These workshops will involve collaboration and discussions between doctors, patients, public health professionals and other community partners to co-design recommendations to improve healthcare as it relates to COVID‑19 vaccines, in an adapted manner responding to the needs of specific communities. We offer a collaborative approach that is aligned with primary care approaches, and more likely to provide long term and sustainable benefit in COVID‑19 vaccination coverage and beyond.
