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

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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.
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