Observational Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2023. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Feb 6, 2023; 11(4): 821-829
Published online Feb 6, 2023. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v11.i4.821
Effect of patient COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy on hospital care team perceptions
Inbar Caspi, Ophir Freund, Omer Pines, Odelia Elkana, Jacob N Ablin, Gil Bornstein
Inbar Caspi, Ophir Freund, Gil Bornstein, Internal Medicine Department B, Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center and Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 6423906, Israel
Omer Pines, Odelia Elkana, Behavioral Sciences Department, Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffo, Tel Aviv 6818211, Israel
Jacob N Ablin, Internal Medicine Department H, Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center and Sackler School of Medicine, Tel Aviv 6423906, Israel
Author contributions: Ablin JN and Bornstein G designed and supervised the study; Freund O, Pines O, Elkana O and Caspi I performed data acquisition, analysis and interpretation; Caspi I and Freund O drafted the manuscript; All authors reviewed and confirmed the final version of the manuscript and critically revised it.
Institutional review board statement: The study was approved by the ethics committee of The Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffo (Authorization No. 2021142).
Informed consent statement: All participants accepted an informed consent form, agreed to participate by pressing to continue with the questionnaire electronically and had the ability to drop out at any stage.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare having no conflicts of interest, real or perceivable, to report.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement-checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement-checklist of items.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Ophir Freund, MD, Doctor, Internal Medicine Department B, Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center and Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Weizman 6, Tel Aviv 6423906, Israel. ophir068@gmail.com
Received: October 27, 2022
Peer-review started: October 27, 2022
First decision: November 30, 2022
Revised: December 12, 2022
Accepted: January 16, 2023
Article in press: January 16, 2023
Published online: February 6, 2023
Core Tip

Core Tip: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine hesitancy is common around the world. We considered that patient vaccine hesitancy could affect the hospital care team perceptions. To test that possibility, we implemented a questionnaire during the Delta variant surge among physicians and nurses with prior experience in caring for COVID-19 patients. We found that patient vaccine hesitancy negatively affected how the medical care team perceived these patients and their care. Vaccine hesitancy can negatively affect the physician-patient relationship and raising awareness of this important issue is crucial for proper interventions.