Knowledge, Attitude, And Acceptance of Gynecologic Cancer Patients Toward Covid-19 Vaccine in Thailand: A Multicenter Study
Suprasert P, Chuenchitkultavorn V, Phianpiset R, Rattanaburi A, Aue-Aungkul A, Vutibenjarasamee K and Kolaka W
Published on: 2023-07-22
Abstract
Objective: To evaluate the knowledge, attitudes, and acceptance of gynecologic cancer patients toward COVID-19 vaccine in Thailand
Methods: Participants from Chiang Mai University Hospital, Khon Kaen University Hospital, Khon Kaen Hospital, Prince of Songkhla University Hospital, and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) were surveyed on these issues using a WHO survey tool.
Results: Between February and September 2022, 1,263 patients participated in this project and 1,084 (85.8%) received the COVID-19 vaccine. The highest rate of vaccination was from NCI followed by Khon Kaen, Chiang Mai, and Songkhla. 356 participants (28.2%) were infected with COVID-19 and 46 infected participants (12.9%) were unvaccinated. Regarding knowledge and attitudes, the average scale level of participants showed ease in obtaining health literacy, moderate probability to have severe COVID-19 infection, proper behavior for prevention, little stress of COVID infection, and quite a lot of trust in healthcare workers. In addition, participants quite agreed with lifting regular rules for controlling the COVID-19 pandemic and often had general well-being. The significantly different levels of (level 0-6: the least to the most) vaccination decision factors in unvaccinated versus vaccinated participants were as follows: health ministry recommendation (3.92 vs.4.16), ease of getting the vaccine (3.6 vs. 3.9), no need to receive the vaccine due to rare disease (2.6 vs.2.2), stress made me not want to vaccinate (2.6 vs 2.1), if everyone is vaccinated, no need for me to vaccinate (2.5 vs 1.9), and the importance of COVID-19 vaccines (3.7 vs.4.2).
Conclusion: Most gynecologic cancer patients received the COVID-19 vaccine and revealed a good knowledge and attitude toward this pandemic.
Keywords
COVID-19-Vaccine; Gynecologic Cancer Patients; AttitudeIntroduction
Although the outbreak of COVID-19 was not as severe as in 2020, from time-to-time COVID cases still occur. According to the WHO Coronavirus (COVID-19) dashboard, 768,187,096 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 6,645,714 deaths were reported in June 2023. For Thailand, from 3 January 2020 to 21 June 2023, 4,749,910 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 34,292 deaths reported with the peak incidence in June 2021 toward June 2022 [1]. To reduce the infection and mortality rate, social distancing, face masks, and personal hygiene combined with produced herd immunity by vaccination becomes the most effective way [2]. One major concern for infected COVID-19 patients who had comorbidities whether chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and especially cancer was related to developing severe symptoms [3]. Cancer patients are possibly immunocompromised by the effects of antineoplastic therapy, supportive medications such as steroids, and the immunosuppressive properties of cancer itself. These factors increased the risk for COVID-19-related morbidity and mortality [4]. In addition, Saini et al [5]. performed a systematic review of 52 studies involving a total of 18,650 cancer patients infected with COVID-19 and found the probability of death as high as 25.6%. Therefore, patients with cancer should have knowledge attitude, and practice (KAP) at a good level and candidate a target population for COVID-19 vaccination. For gynecologic cancer patients, there was an Indian publication that surveyed these issues in 521 gynecologic cancer patients and found overall good KAP towards the COVID-19 pandemic [6]. Regarding COVID-19 vaccine acceptance among cancer patients, Chun et al [7] recently presented the acceptance of COVID-19 vaccination among cancer patients was only 61.8%. Another study by Prabani et al. [8] carried out a systematic review of 29 studies and found the pooled prevalence of COVID-19 vaccination acceptance was 59%. However, the data on KAP and COVID-19 vaccination acceptance in Thai gynecologic cancer patients was limited. Therefore, we conducted a cross-sectional survey to evaluate the COVID-19 vaccination acceptance rate and the KAP of COVID-19 infection in Thai gynecologic cancer patients from five major institutes in four regions. Understanding the level of KAP in the population and knowing the COVID-19 vaccination rate is beneficial for preventive strategies and health promotion guidelines.