Barriers and facilitators to the uptake of the covid-19 vaccination among medical students in clinical years at Makerere University.

Abstract

Background: The COVID-19 vaccine is one of the ways to manage the pandemic as it boosts the immunity of people to fight the COVID infection. But evidence suggests that some people including medical students are still hesitant to take up the COVID-19 vaccination. Thus this study aimed at exploring the barriers and facilitators to the uptake of COVID-19 vaccination among medical students in clinical years at Makerere University. Methods: I conducted qualitative in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with medical students in clinical years at Makerere University, Uganda in September 2022. I used in-depth interview (IDI) and focus group discussion (FGD) guides to collect data from 19 medical students, selected purposively about the barriers and facilitators to the uptake of COVID-19 vaccination. The IDI and FGDs on average took 40 minutes and1 hour and 20 minutes respectively and were audio recorded. Analysis was done manually by reading the transcripts and identifying the different codes and the emerging themes. Results: Among the key barriers to the uptake of COVID-19 vaccination are the; fear of severe side effects of COVID-19 vaccines, lack of trust in the protective effect of the vaccines, insufficient and unclear information about the COVID-19 vaccines, lack of confidence in the safety and effectiveness of vaccines due to their accelerated development process and the bad information on social media about the COVID-19 vaccines. On the other hand; desire to act exemplary, desire to protect oneself and family members against COVID-19 and perceived high risk of contracting COVID-19 were the main facilitators to the uptake of COVID-19 vaccination among medical students. Conclusions: The findings of the study revealed that there several barriers and facilitators to the uptake of COVID-19 Vaccination among medical students. However, there is need for MOH and the college of health Sciences to amplify efforts towards sustaining or improving the facilitators identified in this study and also to address the barriers in order to reduce the hesitancy of medical students to the uptake of COVID-19 vaccines