Taryam M, Alawadhi D, Aburayya A, Mubarak S, Aljasmi M, Salloum SA, et al. Factors Affecting the Uptake of COVID-19 Vaccine among Dubai Airport's Professionals (Original research). SEEJPH 2022, posted: 11 January 2022. DOI: 10.11576/seejph-5091 P a g e 1 | 14 ORIGINAL RESEARCH Factors Affecting the Uptake of COVID-19 Vaccine among Dubai Airport's Professionals Manal Taryam1, Dhoha Alawadhi1, Ahmad Aburayya1, Sara Mubarak1, Maryam Aljasmi2, Said A. Salloum3, Talal Mouzaek4 1 Dubai Health Authority, Dubai, UAE; 2 Mohammed Bin Rashid University of Medicine and Health Sciences, Dubai, UAE; 3 School of Science, Engineering, and Environment, University of Salford, UK; 4 Sheikh Khalifa General Hospital, Umm Al Quwain, UAE. Corresponding author: Dr. Ahmad Aburayya; Address: Dubai Health Authority, Dubai, UAE; Email: Amaburayya@dha.gov.ae Taryam M, Alawadhi D, Aburayya A, Mubarak S, Aljasmi M, Salloum SA, et al. Factors Affecting the Uptake of COVID-19 Vaccine among Dubai Airport's Professionals (Original research). SEEJPH 2022, posted: 11 January 2022. DOI: 10.11576/seejph-5091 P a g e 2 | 14 Abstract Aim: Comprehending the elements that influence COVID-19 vaccination acceptability and recog- nizing expediters for vaccination decisions are critical components of developing effective ways to increase vaccine coverage in the general population. This study aims to investigate the main factors affecting COVID-19 vaccination uptake among Dubai 'Airport's employees. In addition, it seeks to explore the main signs and symptoms that appeared on vaccinated employees after taking the COVID-19 vaccination, hence, track the vaccine's safety. Methods: Employees at Dubai's airport in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), mainly in Dubai, provided data. To gather data online utilising the Google Forms platform, a questionnaire was used as the main quantitative tool. As 2000 questionnaires got distributed, 1007 employees participated in the survey, yielding a 50.4% response rate. Results: The results show that employees overwhelmingly agree with the assertion that the factors of accessibility and affordability have a significant effect on their decision to receive the COVID- 19 vaccine, followed by a trust in vaccine, knowledge, vaccine safety, advice and information, and beliefs on the vaccine. In this study, the agreement level on factors affecting the COVID-19 vac- cine uptake was found significantly to be higher in females (88.6%) who were married (91.6%) and those aged over 60 years (89.2%) at P <.05. In addition, the results show that 53.7% of vac- cinated staff was found to have one or more side effects of the vaccine, where none of them was hospitalized after immunization. The binary logistic regression analysis in this study shows that females were two times more likely to have 'vaccine's symptoms after vaccination than males (Exp (B): 1.6; 95%CI: 1.127 - 2.351, P< .01). It further reveals that participants in the age group over 50 were three times more likely to have 'vaccine's symptoms after vaccination than participants in the age group 20-29 (Exp (B): 2.9; 95%CI: 2.497-9.681, P< .001). Finally, it indicates that indi- viduals with previous SARS-CoV-2 infection were 2 times more likely to have 'vaccine's symp- toms after vaccination than those without known past infection (Exp (B): 1.9; 95%CI: 1.272 - 2.542, P< .01). Conclusion: There are several factors that playing a significant role in population’s decision to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, where the accessibility and affordability factors were found to have the greatest effect on their decision to uptake the vaccine. The current study concluded that COVID-19 vaccination is safe and that adverse effects from a vaccine are usually modest and affected by several factors such as age, gender, and COVID-19 infection history. Keywords: adverse effects, Binary Logistic Regression Model, COVID-19 Pandemic, Dubai Air- port, uptake vaccine. Conflicts of interest: None declared. Taryam M, Alawadhi D, Aburayya A, Mubarak S, Aljasmi M, Salloum SA, et al. Factors Affecting the Uptake of COVID-19 Vaccine among Dubai Airport's Professionals (Original research). SEEJPH 2022, posted: 11 January 2022. DOI: 10.11576/seejph-5091 P a g e 3 | 14 Introduction Since the global pandemic was declared, var- ious corporations and research centres throughout the world have invested in the de- velopment of viable COVID-19 vaccination projects (SARS-CoV-2). In this regard, there is now an enormous toolkit of potential vac- cines available. By July 2021, there were 184 COVID-19 vaccine candidates in pre-clinical development, 105 in clinical development, and 18 vaccines approved for emergency use by at least one regulatory authority (1). Nota- bly, the developed COVID-19 vaccines are particularly essential to control COVID-19 as immunization is one of the best influential and cost-effective healthcare policies for im- peding and controlling communicable dis- eases (2-5). In addition, to terminate the pan- demic, a considerable portion of the popula- tion must be immune to the virus (5), with vaccination being the safest option. Vaccines are a method that humanity has used in the past to lessen the number of people who die as a result of infectious diseases (2,3,6). The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has licensed four COVID-19 vaccines for emergency use, including one from Sinopharm CNBG, an- other from Pfizer-BioNTech, a third from Sputnik V, and the most recent from Oxford- AstraZeneca (6). Most recently, the UAE registered Hyat-vax, a cooperative venture between Sinopharm CNBG and Abu 'Dhabi's G42. The UAE offers its residents vaccines free of charge and on a non-compulsory basis after safeguarding that the individual is eligi- ble for vaccination. Nursing moms, pregnant women, and children as young as 12 years old are included in the eligibility criteria, with the Sinopharm CNBG vaccine given safely to younger children aged 5 years old (7). In- deed, the UAE government's and health offi- cials' concerted efforts, as well as public par- ticipation, have resulted in the country's Na- tional Vaccination Programme's early suc- cess. Worldwide, the UAE is first regarding vac- cine administration rates to its residents, ac- cording to WHO and ‘'Our World in Data’' Data' websites (8) that track vaccination rates track by researchers at the University of Ox- ford. The data shows that as of October 19th 2021, The COVID-19 vaccination has been administered to at least 48.7% of the world's population. Globally, 6.87 billion doses have been administered, with 25.76 million doses being administered every day (8). The UAE registered 86% of the population fully vac- cinated and 96% who received at least one dose (8), followed by Portugal at 88%; Chile at 85%; Spain 82%; Singapore 80%; Uru- guay 79%; Canada 78% (8). Apart from the concern of a disappointing acceptance rate, the real uptake rate of pandemic immuniza- tions may be significantly lower than the ac- ceptance rate once the vaccine has been re- leased and mass immunization programmes advocated (5,9). Recent articles have re- vealed certain influential variables on vac- cination acceptance to aid in the explanation of vaccination reluctance or delay behaviour, and cultural, socioeconomic, and political differences between countries ought to be taken into consideration during the decision- making process of vaccination (10). In es- sence, vaccine safety has been cited as a ma- jor obstacle to vaccination coverage for new vaccines against developing pandemics, in- cluding the 2009 H1N1 pandemic (5,9), while attitudes and past routine immunization history, particularly influenza vaccination history, were the most significant predictor of pandemic vaccination coverage (11). Be- cause the current pandemic is more severe in terms of transmissibility and death than pre- vious influenza pandemics, nations all over the world, including the UAE, are under im- mense insistence to contain the present pan- demic and avoid future devastating epidemic waves. Understanding the factors that influ- ence COVID-19 vaccination acceptability Taryam M, Alawadhi D, Aburayya A, Mubarak S, Aljasmi M, Salloum SA, et al. Factors Affecting the Uptake of COVID-19 Vaccine among Dubai Airport's Professionals (Original research). SEEJPH 2022, posted: 11 January 2022. DOI: 10.11576/seejph-5091 P a g e 4 | 14 and discovering enablers for vaccination de- cisions are key components of designing suc- cessful strategies for increasing vaccination coverage among the public at large (12,13). Therefore, this piloting study aims to investi- gate the main factors affecting COVID-19 vaccination uptake among Dubai 'Airport's employees. In addition, it seeks to explore the main signs and symptoms that appeared on vaccinated employees after taking the COVID-19 vaccination, hence, track the safety of the accepted vaccine. Methods In January 2021, a cross-sectional survey was applied selecting Dubai 'Airport's employees using a systematic sampling method. Nota- bly, systematic sampling is defined as a prob- ability sampling method where the researcher chooses elements from a target population by selecting a random starting point and selects sample members after a fixed ‘sampling in- terval’ (14). Therefore, the researchers in this study selected the first participant in the sam- ple frame as a random starting point where the sampling interval was fixed at 23. In this study, due to the availability of the sample frame, systematic sampling is more applica- ble than other sampling approaches (14-17). In addition, the financial plan of the study is tenuous and necessitates plainness in accom- plishment and comprehending the conse- quences of a survey. The online poll was per- formed utilising the Google Forms platform, and the survey URL was distributed and pub- licised via official emails and social media sites like WhatsApp. The survey was exe- cuted between January 10th to 24th, 2021. The survey was open to all Dubai International Airports employees who were COVID-19 vaccinated, living in the UAE, and aged 20 and older. A sample size of 370 was com- puted utilising RaoSoft sample size calcula- tor, in which we used 5% as a margin of error, 95% as a confidence level. To minimize the sampling error allied with the systematic sampling strategy and increase the accuracy of the sampling consequence including its predictive validity, the present investigation planned for a larger sample size (18). There- fore, out of 46000 vaccinated staff, 2000 re- spondents were systematically selected at 23 sampling intervals. A total of 2000 question- naires were distributed, and 1007 employees participated, yielding a 50.4% response rate. The questionnaire was developed using the 5A model "Taxonomy for Vaccine Uptake Determinants" that was self-administered (19) and based upon studies which have been previously conducted and frameworks to ob- serve factors contributing to the vaccine up- take in the case of newly discovered infec- tious diseases such as COVID-19, H1N1, and Ebola (5,20-25). The contents of the ques- tionnaire included (1) socio-demographic characteristics (6 items), such as age, gender, marital status, educational level, nationality, history of diagnosing for COVID-19; (2) per- ceived factors affecting the vaccinated partic- ipants' decision to receive the COVID-19 vaccine (24 items); (3) main signs and symp- toms that appeared on vaccinated staff after immunization (1 item). All of the questions were closed-ended, with response options in the form of tick boxes. Questions related to socio-demographic characteristics and im- munization symptoms were treated as cate- gorical variables. Questions related to main factors affecting 'participants' vaccination de- cision making against COVID-19 included 6 factors and were assessed on a five-point Lik- ert scale (1) perceived knowledge on COVID-19 vaccination (5 items); (2) per- ceived beliefs on COVID-19 vaccination (4 items); (3) perceived vaccination safety (3 items); (4) perceived accessibility and afford- ability on vaccination (4 items); (5) perceived advice and information related to COVID-19 vaccination (4 items); (6) trust on vaccination (4 items). The perceived factors in this study Taryam M, Alawadhi D, Aburayya A, Mubarak S, Aljasmi M, Salloum SA, et al. Factors Affecting the Uptake of COVID-19 Vaccine among Dubai Airport's Professionals (Original research). SEEJPH 2022, posted: 11 January 2022. DOI: 10.11576/seejph-5091 P a g e 5 | 14 were scored on a 5-point Likert scale, with 1 representing "strongly disagree" and 5 repre- senting "strongly agree," and a score of 3.41 or higher indicating that the identified factor strongly influences respondents' decisions to obtain the COVID-19 vaccine. In essence, the length of each scale that built on a five- point Likert scale can be calculated by divid- ing the scale extension on the total scale points (18,26). In this study, the scale exten- sion is determined by 5-1= 4, and then the length of each scale is calculated by 4/5=0.8. Accordingly, 0.8 was added to the each scale which resulted in adopting 3.41 as threshold for identifying factors affecting respondents' decisions to obtain the COVID-19 vaccine. A descriptive content analysis was performed in this study utilising frequency percentages and distribution to analyze 'respondents' so- cio-demographic characteristics and immun- ization symptoms in the data. To find any possible associations, the socio-demographic data of respondents was cross tabulated with factors influencing their decision on the adoption of the COVID-19 vaccine. To ex- plore if age, gender, and COVID-19 infection history variables were playing a role in the probability of having adverse effects after COVID-19 vaccination, we used a binary lo- gistic regression model. Reliability was as- sessed using Cronbach's alpha value, while construct validity was assessed using compo- nent loading analysis. In this study, 'Cronbach's alpha coefficient with a value of 0.60 and above will be accepted (26). In terms of factor loading, the Principle Compo- nent Analysis (PCA) was used, and the con- struct loading value of 0.50 was established as the typical cut-off point (26). The Statisti- cal Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) ver- sion 25.0 was used to analyse the data. Results Participants’ Description The characteristics of respondents are pre- sented in Table 1. In total, 1,007 employees took part in the current investigation, with 79.9% of them being male and the remaining 20.1% being female. The age groups of (20- 29) and (30-39) reported for over two-thirds of the sample (79.7%). Table 1 shows that 53.2% of respondents hold diplomas and bachelor's degrees, and 12% had postgraduate degrees; Married staff accounted for over half of the sample (57.2%). Regarding nationality, the sample consisted of 31.7% Emirati, 23.5% Indian, 27.3% Arab, and 17.5% from other countries. Furthermore, 12.8% of vaccinated employees reported previous infection with COVID-19. Analysis of Factors Affecting COVID-19 Vaccine Acceptability The research conducted analyses in accord- ance with the extracted elements in this study, and the findings revealed that with a mean of 4.4, employees overwhelmingly agree that the factor of accessibility and price has a significant impact on their decision to obtain the COVID-19 vaccine. The influence was followed by the trust in vaccine factor (4.3). The employees also noted that aspects related to their knowledge on the COVID19 vaccine (4.2) also contributed significantly to their decision to get the COVID-19 vaccine, followed by vaccine safety, advice and infor- mation related to the COVID-19 vaccine, and beliefs on vaccine factors with means of 4.1, 4.0, and 3.8; respectively. With an overall mean of 4.1, the targeted employees deter- mined the six criteria as key reasons influ- encing their decision to obtain the COVID-19 vaccine (Table 2). Taryam M, Alawadhi D, Aburayya A, Mubarak S, Aljasmi M, Salloum SA, et al. Factors Affecting the Uptake of COVID-19 Vaccine among Dubai Airport's Professionals (Original research). SEEJPH 2022, posted: 11 January 2022. DOI: 10.11576/seejph-5091 P a g e 6 | 14 Table 1. The Characteristics of respondents Frequency Percent (%) Gender Male 805 79.9 Female 202 20.1 Age 20-29 239 23.7 30-39 564 56.0 40-49 180 17.9 50-59 15 1.5 Over 60 9 0.9 Marital Status Single 379 37.6 Married 576 57.2 Widow 7 0.7 Divorced 45 4.5 Education Level High School 351 34.9 Diploma 186 18.5 Bachelor Degree 349 34.7 Master Degree 109 10.8 Doctorate Degree 12 1.2 Nationality UAE 319 31.7 Indian 237 23.5 Pakistan 57 5.7 Arab 275 27.3 Western 18 1.8 Other 101 10.0 Diagnosed for COVID- 19 Yes 129 12.8 No 878 87.2 Total 1007 100.0 Taryam M, Alawadhi D, Aburayya A, Mubarak S, Aljasmi M, Salloum SA, et al. Factors Affecting the Uptake of COVID-19 Vaccine among Dubai Airport's Professionals (Original research). SEEJPH 2022, posted: 11 January 2022. DOI: 10.11576/seejph-5091 P a g e 7 | 14 Table 2. Mean Analysis of Vaccine Acceptability Factors Factors N Mean Std. deviation Rank- ing Perceived Knowledge on Vaccine 1007 4.20 .846 3 Perceived Beliefs on Vaccine 1007 3.82 .989 6 Perceived Safety on Vaccine 1007 4.10 .946 4 Accessibility & Affordability 1007 4.42 .678 1 Advice & Information 1007 4.03 .942 5 Perceived Trust on Vaccine 1007 4.31 .899 2 Overall Mean 4.14 In a bid to interpret the results, Employee’s demographic data was cross-tabulated with factors influencing their decision to get the COVID-19 vaccine. The X2 tests listed in Ta- ble 3. Table 3 indicated significant results (p<0.05) for gender, age, marital status, edu- cational level, nationality, and known infec- tion with Covid-19. The overall agreement was 82.8% (11.7% not sure; 5.5% disagree). Table 3. Cross-tabulation of Factors Affecting the COVID-19 Vaccine Acceptability with Employees' Demographical Data Characteristics of Participants Disagree (0.00-2.60) Not Sure (2.61-3.40) Agree (3.41-5.00) Chi- Square P Overall Agreement 5.5% 11.7% 82.8% NA Gender Male 5.7% 17.3% 77% 753.305 (.001) Female 5.3% 6.1% 88.6% Age 20-29 7.6% 16% 76.4% 837.596 (.000) 30-39 1.6% 15.6% 82.8% 40-49 8% 11.7% 80.3% 50-59 7.1% 7.8% 85.1% Over 60 3.4% 7.4% 89.2% Marital Status Single 6.6% 19.4% 74% 767.987 (.002) Married 4.4% 4% 91.6% Widow 6.1% 10.2% 83.7% Divorced 4.9% 13.2% 81.9% Education Level High School 7.1% 18.6% 74.3% 872.589 (.000) Diploma 6.2% 12% 81.8% Bachelor 6.5% 17.5% 76% Master 2.9% 4.7% 92.4% Doctorate 4.8% 5.6% 89.6% Nationality UAE 6.1% 5.5% 88.4% 425.431 (.043) Taryam M, Alawadhi D, Aburayya A, Mubarak S, Aljasmi M, Salloum SA, et al. Factors Affecting the Uptake of COVID-19 Vaccine among Dubai Airport's Professionals (Original research). SEEJPH 2022, posted: 11 January 2022. DOI: 10.11576/seejph-5091 P a g e 8 | 14 Indian 4.9% 3.8% 91.3% Pakistan 7.5% 15.3% 77.2% Arab 3.5% 2.8% 93.7% Western 4.8% 23.3% 71.9% Other 6.2% 19.5% 74.3% Diagnosed for COVID-19 Yes 2.8% 3% 94.2% 613.556 (.003) No 8.2% 20.4% 71.4% Analysis on Signs &Symptoms which ap- peared after Immunization The results show that 53.7% of vaccinated staff was found to have one or more side ef- fects of the vaccine, where 0% of them were hospitalized after immunization (Table 4). Moreover, the table below reveals that 23.1% of them had symptoms related to the injection site, such as shoulder soreness. The table fur- ther shows that 18.5% of them had head- aches, where close to 1% had mild allergic reactions such as hives, wheezing, shortness of breath, and tachycardia (Table 4). Table 4. Main Signs & Symptoms Reported after Immunization Sign & Symptoms N Frequency Percentage (%) Signs related to injection site 541 125 23.1% Body aches 541 56 10.4% Full-body rash 541 16 2.9% Fever 541 45 8.3% Dizziness or fainting 541 8 1.5% Numbness 541 5 .9% Difficulty walking 541 54 9.9% Headache 541 100 18.5% Allergic reactions 541 7 1.3% Body aches & Fever 541 21 3.9% Fever & Headache 541 49 9.1% Dizziness, Fever & Headache 541 36 6.7% Headache & allergic reactions 541 9 1.6% To further analyse the association between the sociodemographic representation (gen- der, age, and COVID-19 infection history) of the sample and the main symptoms that ap- peared after vaccination, a multivariate anal- ysis using binary logistic regression analysis was performed. Table 5 shows multivariate results of factors associated with the main symptoms that appeared after vaccination. It reveals that the gender of participants had a significant association with the main symp- toms that appeared after vaccination. In this regard, the analysis shows that females were two times more likely to have vaccine's symptoms after dosage than males (Exp (B): 1.6; 95%CI: 1.127 - 2.351, P< .01). Age is another variable that was found to signifi- cantly affect the vaccine's symptoms occur- rence. Participants in the age group over 50 were 3 times more likely to have vaccine's Taryam M, Alawadhi D, Aburayya A, Mubarak S, Aljasmi M, Salloum SA, et al. Factors Affecting the Uptake of COVID-19 Vaccine among Dubai Airport's Professionals (Original research). SEEJPH 2022, posted: 11 January 2022. DOI: 10.11576/seejph-5091 P a g e 9 | 14 symptoms after vaccination than participants in the age group 20-29 (Exp (B): 2.9; 95%CI: 2.497- 9.681, P< .001). Finally, the logistic regression analysis indicates that the COVID-19 infection history of participants had a significant association with the main symptoms that appeared after vaccination. The analysis shows that participants with COVID-19 infection history were twice more likely to have vaccine's symptoms after vac- cination than the group who do not have any infection history of COVID-19 (Exp (B): 1.9; 95%CI: 1.272 - 2.542, P< .01). In other words, having a history of COVID-19 is sig- nificantly associated with vaccine's signs and symptoms occurrence. Table 5. Logistic Regression Analysis of Factors Associated with Reported Symptoms after Vaccination Sociodemographic Factor Exp (B) 95.0% C.I. for EXP(B) P Gender Male Ref (1.00) 1.127 - 2.351 P< .01 Female 1.637** Age 20-29 Ref (1.00) .471 - 1.962 .462 - 2.640 1.997- 5.681 ----------- ----------- P< .001 30-39 .973 40-49 .998 Over 50 2.9423*** Diagnosed for COVID-19 No Ref (1.00) 1.272 - 2.542 P< .01 Yes 1.879** *p<0.05; **p<0.01; ***p<0.001. Discussion Vaccine uptake is determined by the vac- cine's accessibility and pricing. This topic is about whether the public can get to the clinic (logistics) and how much the vaccine costs (affordability). In line with this study's re- sults, previous studies show that accessibility and affordability were associated with uptake of the vaccines (5,27). Vaccine uptake neces- sitates a high level of faith in the vaccine, the country of origin, the provider (particu- larly healthcare experts), and the policy- maker. In regression analysis of much re- search that looked at the correlation between trust and vaccination uptake, trust in the vac- cine, healthcare providers, and the health sys- tem were found to reliably predict vaccine uptake or was found to be significantly asso- ciated with retrospective reports of vaccine uptake (28). Not believing or knowing that a vaccine is necessary or recommended was one (and sometimes the most important) cause for vaccine non-adoption (25). Nota- bly, vaccination non-uptake was linked to the belief that COVID-19 is not hazardous. The willingness to get a vaccination is also influ- enced by a person's perception of or under- standing of certain signs of infectious dis- ease. After reading about the symptoms of pertussis in the elderly, for example, more adults aged 65 and up (54 percent) agreed to get the vaccine (21). The belief that herpes zoster causes only temporary pain, on the other hand, was linked to a lower likelihood of vaccination. The ability to understand the properties of a vaccine has an impact on whether or not to get vaccinated. The most common cause provided for the vaccine's Taryam M, Alawadhi D, Aburayya A, Mubarak S, Aljasmi M, Salloum SA, et al. Factors Affecting the Uptake of COVID-19 Vaccine among Dubai Airport's Professionals (Original research). SEEJPH 2022, posted: 11 January 2022. DOI: 10.11576/seejph-5091 P a g e 10 | 14 limited adoption was a lack of knowledge about its effectiveness and safety (21). In our study, "perceived vaccine safety" was the fourth factor playing a substantial role in up taking the COVID-19 vaccine. In essence, vaccine safety has been identified as a basic impediment to vaccination choices, particu- larly for newly launched vaccinations that have not been adequately evaluated in the real world (5). The sixth theme in this study that affected vaccine uptake was advice and information. Healthcare practitioners had a positive impact on the population's vaccina- tion rate, as well as their vaccination inten- tions and commitment. For example, older individuals who got a proficient recommen- dation had much greater vaccination rates than those who did not. According to one re- search, government and media information can help people become vaccinated (29). Fi- nally, the participants weighed the apparent benefits and drawbacks before deciding to take the vaccination. Vaccination was viewed as a preventative measure to enhance their health in several studies (4). Consideration of vaccination as smart, vital, or useful were similar ideas that clearly affected or antici- pated vaccine acceptance. Other predictors as noted by Tuite et al. (29) included things like safeguarding others and living with others who could be exposed. Vaccine uptake was inversely correlated with perceptions that im- munization impairs one's natural defenses, is unpleasant, causes sickness, or is unrelated to one's health (4). In this study, the agreement level on factors affecting the COVID-19 vac- cine uptake was found significantly to be higher in females (88.6%) than males (77%) who are married (91.6%), and aged over 60 years (89.2%), while holding a master’s de- gree (92.4%). Although the results in this study don't match previous studies findings (30), during the spread of COVID-19, women were put under more stress and had a larger physiological load than males, and they were also exposed to a greater risk of in- fection, which compelled them to be vac- cinated. Furthermore, women have a greater immunological response to vaccinations than males, which may assist women lessen the long-term consequences of COVID-19 (31). A higher proportion of older participants per- ceived factors affecting COVID-19 vaccine uptake, which could be related to the fact that they are most at-risk of morbidity and mor- tality; older people who become ill have more complex medical conditions and higher healthcare needs than younger people who become ill. The findings in this study showed that 53.7% of vaccinated staff was found to have one or more side effects of the vaccine, where 0% of them were hospitalized after im- munization. Moreover, the results revealed that 23.1% of them had symptoms related to injection site, where close to 1% had mild al- lergic reactions. The findings of this study are consistent with WHO recommendations, which said that COVID-19 vaccination is safe and that adverse effects from a vaccine are usually modest and transient, such as a sore arm, headache, or moderate fever, on December 30, 2020. More adverse side ef- fects are possible but extremely rare (13). However, the findings of previous studies match our study findings, as the most com- mon side effect that appeared on vaccinated staff was symptoms related to injection site (23.1%). In a population-based study, the es- timated relative incidence of vaccination al- lergic reactions during the primary risk inter- val (weeks 2–7) was 1.45 (95% confidence range, 1.05–1.99; P =.02) compared to the control interval (weeks 20–43). This study discovered that influenza vaccination is con- nected to a small risk of hospitalization due to the vaccine's side effects (32). This result is consistent with our research, which found that following inoculation, 0% of Dubai air- port employees were hospitalised. The results in this study indicated that females who are Taryam M, Alawadhi D, Aburayya A, Mubarak S, Aljasmi M, Salloum SA, et al. Factors Affecting the Uptake of COVID-19 Vaccine among Dubai Airport's Professionals (Original research). SEEJPH 2022, posted: 11 January 2022. DOI: 10.11576/seejph-5091 P a g e 11 | 14 aged more than 50 years are more likely to have side effects after immunization com- pared to male and young persons. This result was supported by several studies. Analysis by gender of 14 studies has revealed that elderly females report significantly more local reac- tions (13). In healthy young adults, placebo- controlled trials demonstrated that inacti- vated influenza vaccination does not result in greater frequencies of systemic symptoms (e.g., fever, malaise, myalgia, and headache) when compared to placebo injections (33). Systemic adverse effects were more likely in those over 65 years old when a vaccination with a high dosage of 180 mcg of HA antigen (36 per 100 vaccinees) was compared to a usual dose of 45 mcg (24 per 100 vaccinees). The majority of the participants' symptoms were minor and temporary, and they went away within 3 days. (34). 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