Annals of Geriatric Education and Medical Sciences 2023;10(1):11–15 Content available at: https://www.ipinnovative.com/open-access-journals Annals of Geriatric Education and Medical Sciences Journal homepage: https://www.agems.in/ Original Research Article A cross sectional study on knowledge, attitude and practice regarding Covid vaccination among health beneficiaries Naveen S Nair 1, *, Karavadi Sri Sai Vidusha 2 , Saad Jamal 1 1 Dept. of Community Medicine, Mount Zion Medical College, Adoor, Kerala, India 2 Dept. of Community Medicine, Raja Rajeswari Medical College, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India ARTICLE INFO Article history: Received 03-11-2022 Accepted 16-01-2023 Available online 08-08-2023 Keywords: COVISHIELD vaccine Cross sectional study KAP score Perception ABSTRACT Background: In 2020, the whole world was taken aback by the emergence of a new viral disease – novel Corona Virus Disease (nCoViD-19), and soon the WHO declared it a pandemic. In India, two vaccines were developed and almost immediately approved for use, namely the Covishield and the Covaxin. These new vaccines and their fastened approval stirred a mixture of reactions both among the health care providers and the general public. Objective: This pioneer study was conducted to assess the Knowledge, Attitude and Practice regarding CoViD vaccination among various beneficiaries. Study Design: A cross-sectional questionnaire based study was conducted among various beneficiaries from January 25 th to April 12 th 2021. Materials and Methods: Employing the stratified random sampling technique, 1000 study subjects were selected. After obtaining written informed consent, one to one interview was conducted. Knowledge, attitude and practice of CoViD vaccination was assessed using a grading system. Results: 99.95% of Doctors and 49.0% of paramedical health care workers in contrast to 72.8% of general citizens had a good practise regarding vaccination and the pandemic in general. 64% of male study subjects had enrolled for vaccination on their self interest, in contrast with 75% of the 365 female study subjects. There was no statistically significant association between Gender and scores >60% in Knowledge, Attitude and Practice regarding CoViD vaccination among the subjects. There was a statistically very high significance between Knowledge regarding vaccination and the independent decision to get vaccinated. Conclusions: Majority of the study population was willing to be vaccinated and the main reason attributed to this willingness was the belief that the vaccine is safe. This is an Open Access (OA) journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms. For reprints contact: reprint@ipinnovative.com 1. Introduction Coronavirus disease (n-CoViD 19) is an ongoing pandemic caused by corona virus. Due to its rapid spread and high rate of mortality and morbidity worldwide it has turned out to be a global calamity. During December 2019, an outbreak of a viral pneumonia was reported from the city of Wuhan, in Hubei * Corresponding author. E-mail address: dr.naveennair@ymail.com (N. S. Nair). province, China. Soon the disease spread to other parts of China and several countries to become a pandemic. By 9 January 2020, it was established that the disease was caused by a novel coronavirus, 2019-nCoV or SARS- CoV-2 and was named COVID-19. 1 Later, during the first half of January 2020, the Chinese researchers shared the genome sequence of the virus, followed by an international response triggered to develop a prophylactic vaccine to provide acquired immunity against COID-19. By April 2020, over hundred institutes and companies in 19 countries https://doi.org/10.18231/j.agems.2023.004 2348-7348/© 2023 Innovative Publication, All rights reserved. 11