Knowledge, attitude and perception towards COVID-19 vaccines amongst clients of tertiary care hospital in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Introduction: COVID-19 vaccine uptake has been poor around the globe due to various reasons, including misperception about disease and vaccines due to fabricated news amidst social platforms and personal beliefs to name a few. We aimed to assess the knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions of people attending our institution regarding these vaccines. Methods: a hospital-based cross-sectional study was conducted at Shree Hindu Mandal Hospital in August 2021. These communities were patients attending the medical departments at the hospital. Bloom technique was used to grade individuals' attitudes, perceptions, and knowledge levels towards COVID-19 vaccines. Association between the explanatory variables and low knowledge, negative perception, and negative attitudes towards vaccines were assessed using a T-test, Chi-Square, and modified poison logistic regression model. Results: this assessment involved 1547 communities (vaccine seeking community=547 and non-vaccine seeking community=1000). A high level of vaccine awareness 99.3% (n=1536) was observed. Low knowledge, negative perception, and negative attitude toward COVID-19 vaccines were 49.1%, 28.5%, and 30.1% respectively. Medical care services seekers were more likely to have low knowledge as compared to the counterpart aPR=1.6(95% CI: 1.4 -1.8), those who did not get vaccine information from social media aPR=0.89(95% CI: 0.81-0.99) and social gatherings aPR=0.80(95% CI: 0.75-0.94) were less likely to have low knowledge as compared to those who received the vaccine information from those sources. Medical care services seekers were more likely to have a negative perception towards vaccines as compared to vaccine seekers aPR=4.8(95% CI: 3.4-6.7), those who did not get information from social media aPR=0.80(95% CI: 0.70-0.90) and neighbor/friends aPR=0.82(95%CI: 0.70-0.96) were less likely to have a negative perception towards vaccines. Medical care services seekers aPR=0.5(95% CI: 0.4-0.6) were less likely to have a negative attitude while those who received vaccine information from neighbors/friends aPR=1.5(95% CI: 1.2-1.8) were more likely to be found with negative attitudes towards vaccines. Conclusion: low knowledge, negative attitude, and perception towards the COVID-19 vaccine were observed. Sources of vaccine information and being not a vaccine seeker play a significant role in the level of low knowledge, negative attitude, and perception. We recommend interventions to improve knowledge, attitude, and perception towards vaccines and modulation of sources of vaccine information for improved uptake of vaccines.