Virginia Research Day 2022

Medical Student Research Cl inical

18 Challenges Experienced In The Assessment Of Vaccination Among Long Term Care Facility Workers In Southwest Virginia

H.N. Rainey; S.J. Weir; L. Garvin; M. Marshall; A. Wakeling; D.A. Geiger; T.J. McCann Corresponding author: sweir@vt.vcom.edu

VCOM Virginia

in individuals’ decision to reject the vaccine. Five said they were not vaccinated and not planning on it, three said they would consider getting the vaccine in the future, and the remaining thirteen had been vaccinated when offered. An interesting finding was that four were willing to quit their job in order to abstain from receiving the vaccine, but the other seventeen would not. The largest influence cited for not receiving the vaccine was, “hearing of adverse effects about the COVID-19 vaccination has made me fear its safety” – by a total of five people. Our study results, while limited quantitatively, do qualitatively describe the issues reported in other sources.

information on healthcare workers opinions with regards to the COVID-19 vaccination. We created an anonymous survey with questions regarding demographics, political ideology, religious background, vaccination status, and a Likert scale to determine individual perceptions. In order to increase accessibility, all research materials were translated to Spanish. In June, the research survey was sent to eighty-four administrators of long-term care facilities throughout southwestern Virginia. Despite mailing study materials for ease of distribution, the willingness of administrators to participate in our study has proven to be quite challenging. A total of twenty-eight responses were recorded despite the large number of facilities contacted; of those, only twenty-one responses were usable. Among the participants, sixteen were female, all identified as white, most considered themselves religious, while occupation and education varied. The highest response by role was from the administrators. Religious reasons were cited by two of the eight individuals for not receiving the vaccine; an overall minor role

Expeditious efforts to vaccinate the world’s population against the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS- CoV-2), the source of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), is crucial to slowing the pandemic that has been ongoing for nearly two years. Despite the increase in accessibility of COVID-19 vaccines, according to the CDC 40% of the United States’ population is not fully vaccinated. Vaccine hesitancy is not only seen in the non-healthcare worker population; increasingly, employees of nursing homes and eldercare facilities are uncertain of the necessity of the COVID-19 vaccine despite caring for high-risk patients. Though vaccine hesitancy has been seen with other vaccinations, the rationales behind the rejection of the COVID-19 vaccine appear to differ from others, and these differences have not been elucidated. In order to better understand vaccine hesitancy among Americans, it is essential to study demographics as a way to identify groups that often experience vaccine hesitancy. The goal of this study was to gain

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