VENTURA — To better understand why patients elected to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, Clinicas del Camino Real, Inc. (CDCR) surveyed 429 patients in Ventura County who received a vaccine to understand their motivations better.
The survey results show that 37% of the patients reported that they received the COVID-19 vaccine as a precaution, 11.4% because a family member urged them to be vaccinated and 12.8% because of a doctor recommendation, 7% because of an employer recommendation and 6.5% because of a medical condition, 4.2% because of something they heard on the news and 0.9% because of travel. The remaining patients had other reasons.
“We deeply care about the health and wellbeing of our patients and our community. The survey allows our healthcare providers to better understand patients’ reasons for receiving the COVID-19 vaccine and will help us work toward a COVID free Southern California,” says Gagan Pawar, MD, the interim CEO and longstanding Chief Medical Officer at CDCR. An interesting result of the survey was that 21% of those surveyed previously had COVID-19. 54.2% of respondents said they had a family member who had COVID or knew a friend, co-worker or someone else who had COVID.”
The CDCR patients surveyed ranged in age from 16-88 years and consisted of 234 females and 195 males. The patient occupations included 40 farmworkers and family members of farmworkers, 39 students, 19 restaurant workers, 17 construction workers, 17 housekeepers, 13 manufacturing workers, 30 trade workers, 6 childcare providers, and a host of other occupations. While 88% of the survey respondents had no concerns with receiving a vaccine, 8% said that they had concerns with possible side effects. The remainder had concerns with asthma, how well the vaccine would work and the difference between Pfizer and Moderna.
“As healthcare professionals, we want to ensure every person receives the vaccine with appropriate education and want to remove as many barriers and make the process as easy as possible. What we found from our survey of patients bodes well for our efforts to get our patients vaccinated, especially with the concerns of the surging COVID Delta variant. It helps healthcare professionals understand what motivates patients to get vaccinated and what concerns they might have. The results will help us better serve our community in Ventura County,” concluded Dr. Pawar.
About Clinicas del Camino Real — Clinicas del Camino Real, Inc. has sixteen health centers throughout Ventura County. For patients who cannot come to us, we go to them with fully equipped, mobile medical and dental units. CDCR provides quality, comprehensive and preventative, healthcare services. For more information, please visit https://clinicas.org