COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and short-term and long-term intentions among unvaccinated young adults: a mixed-method approach - BMC Public Health

Participants were recruited through a social media promotion by the Grand Forks Public Health Department, and all met the eligibility criteria in that they: had home addresses in the Grand Forks County, North Dakota; had never been vaccinated against COVID-19; and were in the 19-to-29-year-old age group. Participants joined either a focus group session or an in-depth interview via Zoom depending on their preference and schedule.

Due to the lack of communication about the FDA’s emergency use authorization and the implications for the approval process, many questioned the intentions of both pharmaceutical companies and the government. Some participants questioned the COVID-19 vaccine because of the trial process and the classification of the FDA’s emergency approval. Other participants felt as if research related to the COVID-19 vaccine was scant and needed to be expanded before the vaccine could be deemed safe.

Participants expressed distrust for government and pharmaceutical companies because they felt as if the situation was being monetized and that people were being tricked into taking the COVID-19 vaccine. Additionally, many local and state governments incentivized getting vaccinated, but this only bred more distrust in the vaccine. Participants said that if the vaccine was effective and safe, there would not be any reason to incentivize people taking it.

“I personally have never thought of being vaccinated because of the side effects of the vaccine that I’ve been hearing of, yeah.” [Focus group #5, participant 24] Participants reported keeping up with the changing information landscape, following government reporting, and news from organizations, such as the WHO or the CDC. Information often became the source of anxiety.

“You know, the rumors you hear on that aspect of things and I feel like a vaccine should not affect your reproductive system whatsoever, and just the fact that the media put some of that stuff out – it’s just scary … ” [Focus group #2, participant 7] “I think the COVID-19 vaccine is a business because, how can you create a vaccine for a virus in a few years, and yet, some other viruses have been with us for more than 20 years and I’ve never gotten a vaccine. And there are also other conspiracy theories behind it. And it’s really hard for us to understand if the other conspiracy theories are true or maybe they are educative.

I don’t want to get it until I know what will happen to me in 5, 10 years. [Focus group #3, participant 11].

Health Health Latest News, Health Health Headlines

Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.

Safety and Outcome of Revascularization Treatment in Patients With Acute Ischemic Stroke and COVID-19: The Global COVID-19 Stroke RegistryBackground and objectives: COVID-19 related inflammation, endothelial dysfunction and coagulopathy may increase the bleeding risk and lower efficacy of revascularization treatments in patients with acute ischemic stroke. We aimed to evaluate the safety and outcomes of revascularization treatments in patients with acute ischemic stroke and COVID-19. Methods: Retrospective multicenter cohort study of consecutive patients with acute ischemic stroke receiving intravenous thrombolysis (IVT) and/or endovascular treatment (EVT) between March 2020 and June 2021, tested for SARS-CoV-2 infection. With a doubly-robust model combining propensity score weighting and multivariate regression, we studied the association of COVID-19 with intracranial bleeding complications and clinical outcomes. Subgroup analyses were performed according to treatment groups (IVT-only and EVT). Results: Of a total of 15128 included patients from 105 centers, 853 (5.6%) were diagnosed with COVID-19. 5848 (38.7%) patients received IVT-only, and 9280 (61.3%) EVT (with or without IVT). Patients with COVID-19 had a higher rate of symptomatic intracerebral hemorrhage (SICH) (adjusted odds ratio [OR] 1.53; 95% CI 1.16–2.01), symptomatic subarachnoid hemorrhage (SSAH) (OR 1.80; 95% CI 1.20–2.69), SICH and/or SSAH combined (OR 1.56; 95% CI 1.23–1.99), 24-hour (OR 2.47; 95% CI 1.58–3.86) and 3-month mortality (OR 1.88; 95% CI 1.52–2.33). COVID-19 patients also had an unfavorable shift in the distribution of the modified Rankin score at 3 months (OR 1.42; 95% CI 1.26–1.60). Discussion: Patients with acute ischemic stroke and COVID-19 showed higher rates of intracranial bleeding complications and worse clinical outcomes after revascularization treatments than contemporaneous non-COVID-19 treated patients. Current available data does not allow direct conclusions to be drawn on the effectiveness of revascularization treatments in COVID-19 patients, or to establish different treatment recommendations in this subgro
Source: medical_xpress - 🏆 101. / 51 Read more »

Study evaluates transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation as treatment for long COVID-chronic fatigueIn a recent study posted to the medRxiv* server, researchers evaluated non-invasive transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation [tVNS] as a treatment for long COVID-related chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).
Source: NewsMedical - 🏆 19. / 71 Read more »

Frontiers | Oropharyngeal microbiome profiled at admission is predictive of the need for respiratory support among COVID-19 patientsThe oropharyngeal microbiome, the collective genomes of the community of microorganisms that colonizes the upper respiratory tract, is thought to influence the clinical course of infection by respiratory viruses, including Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the causative agent of Coronavirus Infectious Disease 2019 (COVID-19). In this study, we examined the oropharyngeal microbiome of suspected COVID-19 patients presenting to the Emergency Department and an inpatient COVID-19 unit with symptoms of acute COVID-19. Of 115 initially enrolled patients, 50 had positive molecular testing for COVID-19+ and had symptom duration of 14 days or less. These patients were analyzed further as progression of disease could most likely be attributed to acute COVID-19 and less likely a secondary process. Of these, 38 (76%) went on to require some form of supplemental oxygen support. To identify functional patterns associated with respiratory illness requiring respiratory support, we applied an interpretable random forest classification machine learning pipeline to shotgun metagenomic sequencing data and select clinical co-variates. When combined with clinical factors, both species and metabolic pathways abundance-based models were found to be highly predictive of the need for respiratory support (F1-score 0.857 for microbes and 0.821 for functional pathways). To determine biologically meaningful and highly predictive signals in the microbiome, we applied the Stable and Interpretable RUle Set (SIRUS) to the output of the models. This analysis revealed that low abundance of two commensal organisms, Prevotella salivae or Veillonella infantium (less than 4.2% and 1.7% respectively), and a low abundance of a pathway associated with LPS biosynthesis (less than 0.1%) were highly predictive of developing the need for acute respiratory support (82% and 91.4% respectively). These findings suggest that the composition of the oropharyngeal microbiome in COVID-19 patien
Source: medical_xpress - 🏆 101. / 51 Read more »