摘要：Walid Al-Qerem,1 Alaa Hammad,1 Alaa Hussein Alsajri,2,3 Shadan Waleed Al-Hishma,2 Jonathan Ling,4 Rami Mosleh5 1Department of Pharmacy, Al-Zaytoonah University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan; 2Specialized Bone Marrow Transplant Center, Baghdad, Iraq; 3University of Sains Malaysia, School of Pharmaceutical sciences, Penang, Malaysia; 4Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Science and Wellbeing University of Sunderland, Sunderland, UK; 5Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences, An-Najah National University, Nablus, PalestineCorrespondence: Rami MoslehDepartment of Pharmacy, Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences,An-Najah National University, PO Box 7, Nablus, Palestine, Tel +970 592859300, Email r.musleh@najah.eduPurpose: The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic poses a serious threat to countless lives. Development of an efficient vaccination can help end the pandemic. Vaccine hesitancy/refusal is a huge issue that could stymie attempts to combat the disease. The goal of this study is to examine COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in Iraq where at the end of July 2021, only 7.4% of the population was vaccinated.Participants and Methods: This is a cross-sectional web-based study. A survey was used to assess knowledge, attitudes and practice (KAP) toward COVID-19. Willingness to be vaccinated against COVID-19 was assessed, with a logistic regression used to identify variables associated with vaccine acceptance. Motives for vaccination refusal/hesitation were reported.Results: A total of 1542 participants (females = 56.7%) completed the questionnaire. Participants displayed high knowledge and good protective practices toward COVID-19 (median score = 15 out of 19 and 20 out of 25 respectively). 88.6% were willing to be vaccinated. Variables associated with vaccine acceptance included have not been infected with COVID-19 (OR=0.53, p=0.01), low- and moderate-income (ORs=0.42 and 0.63, p< 0.01 respectively), low education level (OR=0.33, p-value< 0.01) and perceived degree of vaccination importance (OR=1.30, P-value< 0.01). The most mentioned reasons for vaccine refusal were concerns about vaccine safety and side effects (90.35%) and the need for more information about the vaccine (81.2%).Conclusion: Participants showed high acceptance toward COVID-19 vaccination, nevertheless more efforts should be applied to overcome barriers mentioned by the participants.Keywords: vaccine hesitancy, vaccine refusal, Iraq, pandemic, COVID-19
