Coronavirus Disease 2019 Knowledge, Its Vaccine Uptake Intentions, and the Influence of Personality Traits among Undergraduate Pharmacy Students in a University Setting: Findings and Implications

Abstract

Context: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is the greatest global health catastrophe of the century, with its vaccine hesitancy compounding the woes. Relevant stakeholders, including pharmacy students (whose education was disrupted) are important bulwarks against these catastrophes, but their COVID-19-related information are scarce.

Aims: We assessed COVID-19 knowledge, its vaccine uptake intentions, and the influence of personality traits among pharmacy undergraduates in a Nigerian university.

Settings and Design: This was a post-lockdown cross sectional study conducted at the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto.

Subjects and Methods: A 61-item questionnaire was used to collect data among pharmacy undergraduates who attended Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, Nigeria, in May 2021.

Statistical Analysis Used: Summary statistics– mean (±standard deviation), range, frequency, proportion; inferential statistics– Chi square statistics, binary logistic regression.

Results: The response rate was 88% (168/191). The average COVID-19 knowledge score, the frequency of acceptance, and hesitancy to take COVID-19 vaccine among study participants were 42.9% (95% confidence interval [CI] = 42.1–43.7), 39.1% (95% CI = 37.3%–41.8%), and 61.9% (95% CI = 58.0%–64.2%), respectively. In addition, of the 168 study participants, 73 (43.5%) considered themselves to have high self-esteem, 67 (39.9%) were highly extroverted, 91 (54.2%) highly privately self-conscious, 96 (57.1%) highly publicly self-conscious, and 60 (35.7%) highly self-restrained, with 57 (34.0%) not believing in the existence of COVID-19. COVID-19 knowledge varied significantly by level of study (F [2,165] = 5.539; P = 0.005; η2 = 0.06). Similarly, those with high self-esteem were twice as knowledgeable regarding COVID-19 as those with low self-esteem (odds ratio [OR]: 2.02; 95% CI: 1.08–3.78; P = 0.03) with gleaning COVID-19-related information from social media platforms predicting COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy (CVH) (OR: 0.37; 95% CI: 0.16–0.85; P = 0.02).

Conclusions: The observed suboptimal COVID-19 knowledge was associated with participants’ low level of self-esteem, and the prevalent CVH was associated with obtaining COVID-19-related information from social media platform.