People’s Willingness to Vaccinate Against COVID-19 Despite Their Safety Concerns: Twitter Poll Analysis

Journal of Medical Internet Research - Tập 23 Số 4 - Trang e28973
Fabian Eibensteiner1,2, Valentin Ritschl3,4, Faisal A. Nawaz5, Sajjad S Fazel6, Christos Tsagkaris7, Stefan Tino Kulnik8, Rik Crutzen9,8, Elisabeth Klager2, Sabine Völkl-Kernstock2, Eva Schaden10,2, Maria Kletečka-Pulker11,2, Harald Willschke10,2, Atanas G. Atanasov12,13,2
1Division of Pediatric Nephrology and Gastroenterology, Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, Comprehensive Center for Pediatrics, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
2Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Digital Health and Patient Safety, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
3Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Arthritis and Rehabilitation, Vienna, Austria
4Section for Outcomes Research, Center for Medical Statistics, Informatics, and Intelligent Systems, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
5College of Medicine, Mohammed Bin Rashid University of Medicine and Health Sciences, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
6Department of Oncology, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada
7Faculty of Medicine, University of Crete, Heraklion, Greece
8Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Digital Health and Prevention, Salzburg, Austria
9Department of Health Promotion, Care and Public Health Research Institute, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands
10Department of Anaesthesia, Intensive Care Medicine and Pain Medicine, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
11Institute for Ethics and Law in Medicine, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
12Department of Pharmacognosy, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
13Institute of Genetics and Animal Biotechnology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Jastrzebiec, Poland

Tóm tắt

Background On January 30, 2020, the World Health Organization’s Emergency Committee declared the rapid, worldwide spread of COVID-19 a global health emergency. Since then, tireless efforts have been made to mitigate the spread of the disease and its impact, and these efforts have mostly relied on nonpharmaceutical interventions. By December 2020, the safety and efficacy of the first COVID-19 vaccines were demonstrated. The large social media platform Twitter has been used by medical researchers for the analysis of important public health topics, such as the public’s perception on antibiotic use and misuse and human papillomavirus vaccination. The analysis of Twitter-generated data can be further facilitated by using Twitter’s built-in, anonymous polling tool to gain insight into public health issues and obtain rapid feedback on an international scale. During the fast-paced course of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Twitter polling system has provided a viable method for gaining rapid, large-scale, international public health insights on highly relevant and timely SARS-CoV-2–related topics. Objective The purpose of this study was to understand the public’s perception on the safety and acceptance of COVID-19 vaccines in real time by using Twitter polls. Methods We developed 2 Twitter polls to explore the public’s views on available COVID-19 vaccines. The surveys were pinned to the Digital Health and Patient Safety Platform Twitter timeline for 1 week in mid-February 2021, and Twitter users and influencers were asked to participate in and retweet the polls to reach the largest possible audience. Results The adequacy of COVID-19 vaccine safety (ie, the safety of currently available vaccines; poll 1) was agreed upon by 1579 out of 3439 (45.9%) Twitter users. In contrast, almost as many Twitter users (1434/3439, 41.7%) were unsure about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines. Only 5.2% (179/3439) of Twitter users rated the available COVID-19 vaccines as generally unsafe. Poll 2, which addressed the question of whether users would undergo vaccination, was answered affirmatively by 82.8% (2862/3457) of Twitter users, and only 8% (277/3457) categorically rejected vaccination at the time of polling. Conclusions In contrast to the perceived high level of uncertainty about the safety of the available COVID-19 vaccines, we observed an elevated willingness to undergo vaccination among our study sample. Since people's perceptions and views are strongly influenced by social media, the snapshots provided by these media platforms represent a static image of a moving target. Thus, the results of this study need to be followed up by long-term surveys to maintain their validity. This is especially relevant due to the circumstances of the fast-paced pandemic and the need to not miss sudden rises in the incidence of vaccine hesitancy, which may have detrimental effects on the pandemic’s course.

Từ khóa


Tài liệu tham khảo

10.1111/tmi.13383

10.1136/bmj.m1075

10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30567-5

10.1016/S0140-6736(20)31142-9

10.1136/bmjopen-2020-043015

10.1001/jama.2020.6130

10.1016/S2468-2667(20)30090-6

10.1056/NEJMoa2035389

10.1016/S0140-6736(21)00234-8

10.1056/NEJMoa2034577

10.1016/S0140-6736(20)32661-1

10.1056/NEJMoa2034201

10.1001/jama.2021.2352

10.1038/s41581-021-00406-6

10.1016/j.tele.2020.101547

10.2196/19996

10.1093/jtm/taaa031

10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30600-0

10.1111/acem.14036

10.2196/18796

10.1016/j.osnem.2020.100104

10.1080/10810730.2020.1776423

10.1586/14760584.2015.964212

10.1016/j.coviro.2020.01.001

10.2105/AJPH.2016.303512

10.2196/jmir.4220

10.2196/jmir.6670

das Statistik-Portal: Statistiken, Marktdaten & StudienStatista GmbH2021-03-04https://de.statista.com/

10.2196/13870

Digital Health and Patient Safety PlatformDigital Patient Safety2021-03-19https://digitalpatientsafety.com/

Tools for Twitter analytics, bio search and moreFollowerwonk2021-02-20https://followerwonk.com/

Digital Health and Patient Safety PlatformFacebook2021-03-19https://www.facebook.com/DHPSP

Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Digital Health and Patient SafetyLinkedIn2021-03-19https://at.linkedin.com/company/ludwig-boltzmann-institute-for-digital-health-and-patient-safety

Healthcare analytics products for social and real-world dataSymplur2021-02-20https://www.symplur.com/

10.1080/08870446.2019.1606222

10.1038/s41591-020-1124-9

10.1016/j.vaccine.2020.08.043

10.1016/S2468-2667(21)00012-8

10.31234/osf.io/r8h6z

10.3390/vaccines9010016

10.1016/S1473-3099(20)30724-6

10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.25594

Thông tin
Thông tin xuất bản

Journal of Medical Internet Research

Tập 23 Số 4

e28973

Thông tin tác giả