Publication:

Knowledge and attitude of people above 18 years regarding COVID-19 vaccination in a rural area of Kerala

Background The COVID vaccination programme in conjunction with other control measures, are needed to control the COVID-19 pandemic. The mass vaccination with COVID vaccines, will help to increase the herd immunity. This study is an attempt to assess the knowledge and attitude of the adult population of a panchayat area of Thrissur district of Kerala towards COVID-19 vaccination and socio-demographic determinants associated with it.

Methods We have done a cross-sectional study among 350 study participants selected by cluster sampling technique from a panchayat area of Thrissur district of Kerala and the data was collected, using a pretested semi structured questionnaire. The knowledge and attitude were assessed by proportion and association of socio-demographic determinants was found out using ‘t’ test and ‘ANOVA’ test.

Results The result obtained, showed 94.3% of persons responded that there is a vaccine for preventing COVID and 85.2% were aware that Covishield and Covaxin were the vaccine freely available. The 78.3% respondents knew that there should be 84 days between the doses of Covishield and 77.1% knew that 28 days for Covaxin. The 100% respondents had attitude to take the vaccine and 99.1% were ready to continue COVID prevention measures even after vaccination. As per this study, younger age (p=0.04) and religion (0.000) had an association with knowledge.

Conclusions The high level of knowledge and a100% attitude towards COVID vaccination may be due to high political will and accountability of the governments towards it. The places with low acceptance rate can be able to model on it.