TY - JOUR
T1 - COVID-19 Vaccine Acceptance among Social Media Users
T2 - A Content Analysis, Multi-Continent Study
AU - Shaaban, Ramy
AU - Ghazy, Ramy Mohamed
AU - Elsherif, Fawzia
AU - Ali, Nancy
AU - Yakoub, Youssef
AU - Aly, Maged
AU - Elmakhzangy, Rony
AU - Abdou, Marwa Shawky
AU - McKinna, Bonny
AU - Elzorkany, Amira Mohamed
AU - Abdullah, Fatimah
AU - Alnagar, Amr
AU - Eltaweel, Nashwa
AU - Alharthi, Majed
AU - Mohsin, Ali
AU - Ordóñez-Cruickshank, Ana
AU - Toniolo, Bianca
AU - Grafolin, Tâmela
AU - Aye, Thit Thit
AU - Goh, Yong Zhin
AU - Deghidy, Ehsan Akram
AU - Bahri, Siti
AU - Sappayabanphot, Jarntrah
AU - Elhadi, Yasir Ahmed Mohammed
AU - Mohammed, Salma
AU - El-Deen, Ahmed Nour
AU - Ismail, Ismail
AU - Elhafeez, Samar Abd
AU - Elbarazi, Iffat
AU - Saddik, Basema
AU - El-Khatib, Ziad
AU - Mohsin, Hiba
AU - Kamal, Ahmed
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
PY - 2022/5/1
Y1 - 2022/5/1
N2 - Vaccine hesitancy is defined as a delayed in acceptance or refusal of vaccines despite avail-ability of vaccination services. This multinational study examined user interaction with social media about COVID-19 vaccination. The study analyzed social media comments in 24 countries from five continents. In total, 5856 responses were analyzed; 83.5% of comments were from Facebook, while 16.5% were from Twitter. In Facebook, the overall vaccine acceptance was 40.3%; the lowest acceptance rates were evident in Jordan (8.5%), Oman (15.0%), Senegal (20.0%) and Morocco (20.7%) and the continental acceptance rate was the lowest in North America 22.6%. In Twitter, the overall acceptance rate was (41.5%); the lowest acceptance rate was found in Oman (14.3%), followed by USA (20.5%), and UK (23.3%) and the continental acceptance rate was the lowest in North America (20.5%), and Europe (29.7%). The differences in vaccine acceptance across countries and continents in Facebook and Twitter were statistically significant. Regarding the tone of the comments, in Face-book, countries that had the highest number of serious tone comments were Sweden (90.9%), United States (61.3%), and Thailand (58.8%). At continent level, serious comments were the highest in Asia (58.4%), followed by Africa (46.2%) and South America (46.2%). In twitter, the highest serious tone was reported in Egypt (72.2%) while at continental level, the highest proportion of serious comments was observed in Asia (59.7%), followed by Europe (46.5%). The differences in tone across countries and continents in Facebook and Twitter and were statistically significant. There was a significant association between the tone and the position of comments. We concluded that the overall vaccine acceptance in social media is relatively low and varied across the studied countries and continents consequently, more in-depth studies are required to address causes of such VH and com-bat infodemics.
AB - Vaccine hesitancy is defined as a delayed in acceptance or refusal of vaccines despite avail-ability of vaccination services. This multinational study examined user interaction with social media about COVID-19 vaccination. The study analyzed social media comments in 24 countries from five continents. In total, 5856 responses were analyzed; 83.5% of comments were from Facebook, while 16.5% were from Twitter. In Facebook, the overall vaccine acceptance was 40.3%; the lowest acceptance rates were evident in Jordan (8.5%), Oman (15.0%), Senegal (20.0%) and Morocco (20.7%) and the continental acceptance rate was the lowest in North America 22.6%. In Twitter, the overall acceptance rate was (41.5%); the lowest acceptance rate was found in Oman (14.3%), followed by USA (20.5%), and UK (23.3%) and the continental acceptance rate was the lowest in North America (20.5%), and Europe (29.7%). The differences in vaccine acceptance across countries and continents in Facebook and Twitter were statistically significant. Regarding the tone of the comments, in Face-book, countries that had the highest number of serious tone comments were Sweden (90.9%), United States (61.3%), and Thailand (58.8%). At continent level, serious comments were the highest in Asia (58.4%), followed by Africa (46.2%) and South America (46.2%). In twitter, the highest serious tone was reported in Egypt (72.2%) while at continental level, the highest proportion of serious comments was observed in Asia (59.7%), followed by Europe (46.5%). The differences in tone across countries and continents in Facebook and Twitter and were statistically significant. There was a significant association between the tone and the position of comments. We concluded that the overall vaccine acceptance in social media is relatively low and varied across the studied countries and continents consequently, more in-depth studies are required to address causes of such VH and com-bat infodemics.
KW - COVID-19
KW - COVID-19 vaccine
KW - comment tone and position
KW - content analysis
KW - social media
KW - vaccine hesitancy
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U2 - 10.3390/ijerph19095737
DO - 10.3390/ijerph19095737
M3 - Article
C2 - 35565132
AN - SCOPUS:85129550775
SN - 1661-7827
VL - 19
JO - International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
JF - International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
IS - 9
M1 - 5737
ER -