Objective:The objective of this study is to evaluate the acceptance of pregnant women with regards to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination during pregnancy and to identify any significant changes in their a...Objective:The objective of this study is to evaluate the acceptance of pregnant women with regards to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination during pregnancy and to identify any significant changes in their anxiety and knowledge on COVID-19 compared to our previous study.Methods:This cross-sectional survey was performed in the antenatal clinics of United Christian Hospital and Tseung Kwan O Hospital of Hong Kong,China.Questionnaires were distributed to pregnant women for self-completion when attending follow-up from August to October 2021.Apart from basic demographic data,the questionnaire comprised of questions including knowledge on COVID-19 and its vaccines in pregnancy as well as attitudes and behaviors of pregnant women and their partners toward COVID-19.Continuous variables were analyzed by Student’s test and Levene’s test was used to confirm normal distribution and homogeneity of variance for continuous variables,whereas categorical variables were analyzed by the Chi-squared test or Fisher’s exact test as appropriate.AP value of <0.05 was considered to be statistically significant.Results:A total of 816 completed questionnaires were included for analysis.Pregnant women were less worried about COVID-19 in the current survey as compared to the last survey (393/816,48.2%vs.518/623,83.1%,P<0.001).Fewer pregnant women believed that pregnancy were more susceptible to contract SARS-CoV-2 as compared to the last survey (265/816,32.5%vs.261/623,41.9%,P<0.001).They have significant knowledge gap and concerns about COVID-19 vaccines.Nearly half of the participants believed that pregnant women cannot have COVID-19 vaccination (402/816,49.3%) and it is unsafe to fetus (365/816,44.7%).Around a third of women perceived that they were more prone to the side effects and complications of COVID-19 vaccines than the general population (312/816,38.2%) and did not recognize that maternal COVID-19 vaccination could effect transferral of antibodies to the fetus to promote postnatal passive immunity (295/816,36.2%).Most of them had not been vaccinated (715/816,87.6%) and only (12/715) 1.7% of them would consider vaccination during pregnancy.Conclusion:Despite the local and international recommendations for pregnant women to be vaccinated,the uptake of COVID-19 vaccines during pregnancy remained extremely low.Efforts should be made to effectively provide information about the safety and benefits of COVID-19 vaccines during pregnancy.There is an urgent need to booster vaccination rates in pregnant women to avoid excessive adverse pregnancy outcomes related to COVID-19.展开更多
文摘Objective:The objective of this study is to evaluate the acceptance of pregnant women with regards to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination during pregnancy and to identify any significant changes in their anxiety and knowledge on COVID-19 compared to our previous study.Methods:This cross-sectional survey was performed in the antenatal clinics of United Christian Hospital and Tseung Kwan O Hospital of Hong Kong,China.Questionnaires were distributed to pregnant women for self-completion when attending follow-up from August to October 2021.Apart from basic demographic data,the questionnaire comprised of questions including knowledge on COVID-19 and its vaccines in pregnancy as well as attitudes and behaviors of pregnant women and their partners toward COVID-19.Continuous variables were analyzed by Student’s test and Levene’s test was used to confirm normal distribution and homogeneity of variance for continuous variables,whereas categorical variables were analyzed by the Chi-squared test or Fisher’s exact test as appropriate.AP value of <0.05 was considered to be statistically significant.Results:A total of 816 completed questionnaires were included for analysis.Pregnant women were less worried about COVID-19 in the current survey as compared to the last survey (393/816,48.2%vs.518/623,83.1%,P<0.001).Fewer pregnant women believed that pregnancy were more susceptible to contract SARS-CoV-2 as compared to the last survey (265/816,32.5%vs.261/623,41.9%,P<0.001).They have significant knowledge gap and concerns about COVID-19 vaccines.Nearly half of the participants believed that pregnant women cannot have COVID-19 vaccination (402/816,49.3%) and it is unsafe to fetus (365/816,44.7%).Around a third of women perceived that they were more prone to the side effects and complications of COVID-19 vaccines than the general population (312/816,38.2%) and did not recognize that maternal COVID-19 vaccination could effect transferral of antibodies to the fetus to promote postnatal passive immunity (295/816,36.2%).Most of them had not been vaccinated (715/816,87.6%) and only (12/715) 1.7% of them would consider vaccination during pregnancy.Conclusion:Despite the local and international recommendations for pregnant women to be vaccinated,the uptake of COVID-19 vaccines during pregnancy remained extremely low.Efforts should be made to effectively provide information about the safety and benefits of COVID-19 vaccines during pregnancy.There is an urgent need to booster vaccination rates in pregnant women to avoid excessive adverse pregnancy outcomes related to COVID-19.
