COVID-19 Vaccine Preference, Hesitancy, and Conspiracy Beliefs of Radiologic Technologists in Batangas Province, Philippines

Vaccine hesitancy and vaccine conspiracy beliefs are factors that decreased the intention of getting the vaccine. Therefore, the progress of betterment and achieving herd immunity will be delayed if these factors were presented high. To date, no research study assessed the level of vaccine hesitancy and vaccine conspiracy beliefs of radiologic technologists, who are part of the healthcare team. In addition, the ranking of the vaccines based on familiarity and the preferred vaccine were also determined. The correlation between the socio-demographic profile and the other variables such as vaccine preference, vaccine hesitancy, and conspiracy beliefs were also evaluated. A cross-sectional study with a convenience sample of 68 respondents were surveyed online. The four-part questionnaire was hosted by Google forms and the link was distributed through social media platforms. Eligibility criteria included being a registered radiologic technologist and being employed within the province of Batangas, Philippines during the time of the study. The measures included socio-demographic profile, ranking the vaccines and preference, Oxford COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy scale, and Vaccine Conspiracy Belief Scale (VCBS). The obtained results from 61 responses show that respondents were most familiar to AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine. However, 49.2% of the respondents preferred the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. The level of vaccine hesitancy and vaccine conspiracy beliefs of the respondents were low. Therefore, the level of vaccine acceptance among radiologic technologists was high. There was no significant relationship between socio- demographic profile and vaccine preference, hesitancy, and conspiracy beliefs of respondents.

Keywords – Healthcare, immunity, radiographer, SARS-COV2, vaccine acceptance