Barriers to acceptance of the COVID-19 Vaccine: A Literature Review

The goal of this research is to identify and address the most common misconceptions and hesitations against vaccines for COVID-19 as documented among the current literature and increase acceptance of COVID-19 vaccines. PubMed and Google Scholar were used to identify articles specifically stating factors of hesitancy or misconceptions about the COVID-19 vaccines from peer-reviewed and published manuscripts. Based on 29 included articles, the most common reasons respondents stated they were hesitant to receive the COVID-19 vaccine included concerns about long-term side effects and results, overall distrust of the manufacturer and the manufacturing process, and skepticism regarding the efficacy of the vaccine against COVID-19. Based on these statements of hesitancy, further research can be performed to find factual evidence to increase patient awareness and reception of the COVID-19 vaccine. Future studies can be performed to assess how the public conception of the vaccine has changed after increased vaccine administration and long-term evaluation from various vaccine manufacturers.