Aim: The present study aims to observe the reasons for which the participants have chosen to uptake one of the COVID-19 vaccines approved in Romania. Thus, it will help us to determine whether the reasons are medical in nature, with the respondents' scope to stay healthy, or if there are other motivations. High rates of vaccine acceptance are essential in the struggle against the COVID-19 pandemic, and trust indicators in other inoculations may be vital for the good management of the vaccination campaign.
Methods: The research consisted in applying an online questionnaire in the period January-March 2022 during the fifth wave of COVID-19. The individuals in the target group had to comply with three conditions: they should be inoculated, at least 18 years of age and Romanian residents. The questionnaire was administered to 2297 people and structured to obtain socio-demographic data, determine confidence in mandatory and optional vaccines (rotavirus, hepatitis A, meningococcal vaccine, etc.) and extract the reasons why respondents chose to be vaccinated.
Results: The data extracted from the questionnaire reveal a high rate of confidence of participants in the vaccines included in the national vaccination scheme (98.6%) and in the optional vaccines other than anti-COVID-19 (97.2%). Of the respondents, 23.4% had at least one positive test for COVID-19. Although the entire sample is vaccinated against the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the reasons behind the decision to vaccinate are not only medical in nature, thus, 18.3% were motivated by "protecting their own health/protection against the virus", 17% due to "fear of the disease", 8.8% for getting back to normal life and ending the pandemic and 8.5% due to government restrictions/vaccination certificate.
Conclusions: In our study, we were able to validate the research hypothesis that the reasons for vaccine acceptance are multiple and not only medical (health protection, existing co-morbidities, etc.) and to show that although vaccination has been accepted, some participants believe in conspiracy theories, including those that try to convince people of the harmfulness of the vaccine. In addition, by applying Pearson, Kendall and Spearman correlation tests, we observed that indicators showing high confidence in optional vaccines relate strongly with the decision to vaccinate against COVID-19.
Keywords: COVID-19; medical education; pandemic; social security; vaccination; vaccine acceptance/uptake.