Acceptance of the COVID-19 vaccine based on the Health Belief Model in the Republic of Georgia: a cross-sectional study

Introduction
The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak is an emerging global public health issue of the 21st century. Vaccine hesitancy as a global phenomenon was considered by the World Health Organization (WHO) to be one of the main threats to global health in 2019. In this study, we aimed to investigate COVID-19 vaccination uptake of the general public in Georgia, using a behavioral framework known as the Health Belief Model (HBM).

Material and methods
We performed an online survey using Facebook among Georgian adults aged 18 years and above from June 15 to July 18, 2021. The questionnaire included demographics (age, gender, marital status, education, employment status and income), self-perceived health status and perception towards COVID-19 vaccination by using HBM. The main constructs of the model were “perceived suscep­tibility”, “perceived severity”, “perceived benefit”, “perceived barriers” and “cues to action”.

Results
The survey generated a total of 394 responses. Of these, 50.8% were below the age of 25 years (29.53 ± 11.63) and 71.3% were female. Seventy-seven (19.5%) subjects had already received at least one vaccine dose against COVID-19 and 122 respondents (31.0%) reported that they had COVID-19 experience in the past. Regarding the HBM components, perceived benefits construct (OR = 6.18, 95% CI: 3.237-11.800), perceived barriers construct (OR = 0.52, 95% CI: 0.368-0.748) and cues to action construct (OR = 0.56, 95% CI: 0.369-0.850) were important predictors for vaccine uptake.

Conclusions
The low vaccination intention among Georgian residents highlights the significance of creating effective vaccine promotion programs based on the factors found in this study.