Comparing COVID-19 Vaccine Perception and Barriers to its Uptake among Healthcare and Non-Healthcare Workers in Nigeria

Background: Nigeria deployed the COVID-19 vaccine in a phased manner with health workers being among the initial subgroups to have access. This study compared recent estimates of knowledge of and barriers to COVID-19 vaccine uptake among health and non-health workers.

Methodology: A cross-sectional national study was conducted between February and April 2022. A multistage sampling method was used in recruiting 904 healthcare and 1013 non-health workers from all six geopolitical zones in Nigeria. Bivariate analysis using the Chi-square test was used to investigate the association between being a health worker and vaccine knowledge and barriers to uptake with the significance level set at <0.05.

Results: The mean age of respondents was 35.910.7 years, with 1092 males (57.0%) and 825 females (43.0%). A greater proportion of health workers compared to non-health workers agreed that the COVID-19 vaccine should be received by everyone (2=118.757, P<0.0001); that it was important to get vaccinated to protect those who cannot (2=111.565, P<0.0001); that there are better ways to prevent COVID-19 (2=211.281, P<0.0001); agreed with leaders who do not support vaccination (2=120.837, P<0.0001); with employees advice to get vaccinated (2=96.606, P<0.0001); and that the reason they got vaccinated was to enable them to enter regulated premises (2=8.754, P= 0.003). Distance from clinics (2=15.746, P<0.0001), being sent home due to lack of vaccines (2=4.149, P=0.042); and not returning to the clinic a second time when sent home initially (2=18.650, P<0.0001) were all significant barriers to receiving COVID-19 vaccine for non-health workers.

Conclusions: Our study specifies a gap in perception of and barriers to COVID-19 vaccine uptake among non-health workers in Nigeria. If vaccine coverage must be optimized, an improved strategy is advocated to improve non-health workers’ perception of and access to COVID-19 vaccines.