Exploring vaccine hesitancy in care home employees in North West England: A qualitative study

Amelia Dennis; Charlotte Robin; Leah Ffion Jones; Holly Carter

doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2021-055239

Exploring vaccine hesitancy in care home employees in North West England: A qualitative study

Amelia Dennis, Charlotte Robin, Leah Ffion Jones, Holly Carter

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

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Abstract

OBJECTIVES: Care homes have experienced a high number of COVID-19 outbreaks, and it is therefore important for care home employees to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. However, there is high vaccine hesitancy among this group. We aimed to understand barriers and facilitators to getting the COVID-19 vaccine, as well as views on potential mandatory vaccination policies.

DESIGN: Semi-structured interviews.

SETTING: Care home employees in North West England. Interviews conducted in April 2021.

PARTICIPANTS: 10 care home employees (aged 25-61 years) in the North West, who had been invited to have, but not received the COVID-19 vaccine.

RESULTS: We analysed the interviews using a framework analysis. Our analysis identified eight themes: perceived risk of COVID-19, effectiveness of the vaccine, concerns about the vaccine, mistrust in authorities, facilitators to getting the vaccine, views on mandatory vaccinations, negative experiences of care work during the COVID-19 pandemic, and communication challenges.

CONCLUSIONS: Making COVID-19 vaccination a condition of deployment may not result in increased willingness to get the COVID-19 vaccination, with most care home employees in this study favouring leaving their job rather than getting vaccinated. At a time when many care workers already had negative experiences during the pandemic due to perceived negative judgement from others and a perceived lack of support facing care home employees, policies that require vaccination as a condition of deployment were not positively received.

Original language	English
Article number	e055239
Journal	BMJ Open
Volume	12
Issue number	5
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2021-055239
Publication status	Published - 2 May 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information: The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

Open Access: This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

Publisher Copyright: © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2022. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.

Citation: Dennis A, Robin C, Jones LF, et al. Exploring vaccine hesitancy in care home employees in North West England: a qualitative study. BMJ Open 2022; 12:e055239.

DOI:10.1136/bmjopen-2021-055239

Keywords

COVID-19
public health
qualitative research

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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Cite this

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title = "Exploring vaccine hesitancy in care home employees in North West England: A qualitative study",

abstract = "OBJECTIVES: Care homes have experienced a high number of COVID-19 outbreaks, and it is therefore important for care home employees to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. However, there is high vaccine hesitancy among this group. We aimed to understand barriers and facilitators to getting the COVID-19 vaccine, as well as views on potential mandatory vaccination policies. DESIGN: Semi-structured interviews. SETTING: Care home employees in North West England. Interviews conducted in April 2021. PARTICIPANTS: 10 care home employees (aged 25-61 years) in the North West, who had been invited to have, but not received the COVID-19 vaccine. RESULTS: We analysed the interviews using a framework analysis. Our analysis identified eight themes: perceived risk of COVID-19, effectiveness of the vaccine, concerns about the vaccine, mistrust in authorities, facilitators to getting the vaccine, views on mandatory vaccinations, negative experiences of care work during the COVID-19 pandemic, and communication challenges. CONCLUSIONS: Making COVID-19 vaccination a condition of deployment may not result in increased willingness to get the COVID-19 vaccination, with most care home employees in this study favouring leaving their job rather than getting vaccinated. At a time when many care workers already had negative experiences during the pandemic due to perceived negative judgement from others and a perceived lack of support facing care home employees, policies that require vaccination as a condition of deployment were not positively received.",

keywords = "COVID-19, public health, qualitative research",

author = "Amelia Dennis and Charlotte Robin and Jones, {Leah Ffion} and Holly Carter",

note = "Funding Information: The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. Open Access: This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2022. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ. Citation: Dennis A, Robin C, Jones LF, et al. Exploring vaccine hesitancy in care home employees in North West England: a qualitative study. BMJ Open 2022; 12:e055239. DOI:10.1136/bmjopen-2021-055239",

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N1 - Funding Information: The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. Open Access: This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. Publisher Copyright: © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2022. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ. Citation: Dennis A, Robin C, Jones LF, et al. Exploring vaccine hesitancy in care home employees in North West England: a qualitative study. BMJ Open 2022; 12:e055239. DOI:10.1136/bmjopen-2021-055239

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N2 - OBJECTIVES: Care homes have experienced a high number of COVID-19 outbreaks, and it is therefore important for care home employees to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. However, there is high vaccine hesitancy among this group. We aimed to understand barriers and facilitators to getting the COVID-19 vaccine, as well as views on potential mandatory vaccination policies. DESIGN: Semi-structured interviews. SETTING: Care home employees in North West England. Interviews conducted in April 2021. PARTICIPANTS: 10 care home employees (aged 25-61 years) in the North West, who had been invited to have, but not received the COVID-19 vaccine. RESULTS: We analysed the interviews using a framework analysis. Our analysis identified eight themes: perceived risk of COVID-19, effectiveness of the vaccine, concerns about the vaccine, mistrust in authorities, facilitators to getting the vaccine, views on mandatory vaccinations, negative experiences of care work during the COVID-19 pandemic, and communication challenges. CONCLUSIONS: Making COVID-19 vaccination a condition of deployment may not result in increased willingness to get the COVID-19 vaccination, with most care home employees in this study favouring leaving their job rather than getting vaccinated. At a time when many care workers already had negative experiences during the pandemic due to perceived negative judgement from others and a perceived lack of support facing care home employees, policies that require vaccination as a condition of deployment were not positively received.

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Exploring vaccine hesitancy in care home employees in North West England: A qualitative study

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

UN SDGs

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