Willingness of Healthcare Workers to Recommend or Receive a Third COVID-19 Vaccine Dose: A Cross-Sectional Study from Jordan

Background: The availability of COVID-19 vaccines worldwide necessitates measuring healthcare workers’ (HCWs’) willingness to recommend or receive these vaccines. Therefore, we conducted a local study in Jordan to assess HCWs’ willingness to recommend or receive a third dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and the predictors of such a decision. A cross-sectional study investigated Jordanian HCWs’ willingness regarding a third dose of a COVID-19 vaccine using a self-administered online questionnaire through WhatsApp, a mobile phone application. A total of 300 HCWs participated in the current study. Of these HCWs, 65.3% were physicians, 25.3% were nurses, and 9.3% were pharmacists. HCWs’ overall willingness regarding a third vaccine dose was 68.4% (49.4% certainly and 19.0% probably), whereas the overall willingness of HCWs to recommend a third dose to their patients was 73.3% (49.0% certainly and 24.3% probably). Males had significantly higher willingness than females (82.1% vs. 60.1%, p < 0.05). Physicians reported more willingness than nurses and pharmacists. HCWs’ willingness was not significantly affected by direct contact with a patient infected with COVID-19 or by a personal history of COVID-19 infection. Only 31% of HCWs were certainly willing to recommend the vaccine to their patients with chronic diseases, and only 28% of the participants were certainly willing to recommend it to people aged 65 or older. HCWs’ willingness to receive a third dose of a COVID-19 vaccine is limited in Jordan. This has affected their certainty in recommending this vaccine to their patients or people older than 60. Decision-makers and health-promotion programs in Jordan should focus on addressing this public health problem

Implementation of Country-Wide Pharmacoeconomic Principles in Cancer Care in Developing Countries: Expert based recommendations

Background: Cancer care is a major challenge to health care and for optimal outcomes, health systems need to align policy across many areas of public life. The recognition that even the wealthiest nations can fail optimum outcomes indicates a need for increased efficiency in cancer control programs. Fundamental to this is the efficient direction of resources – a process that can be optimised through economic measures.This manuscript contains expert recommendations on how decision maker scan implement pharmacoeconomic principles at national level in developing countries. // Methods: A multidisciplinary panel of 10 experts was formed of oncologists, clinical pharmacists, health economists, chronic disease control and public health experts from different countries and health care sectors. The panel developed consensus recommendations for different stakeholders using a framework analysis methods. // Results: Recommendations were categorized to national level, hospital level, industry level and public- community level to support decisionmakers in implementing pharmacoeconomic principles in a systematic way. The recommendations included having proper well-structured data driven processes with specific role for each stakeholders. We proposed requirement structures and process in such a way that they can be customized based on individual country plans. // Conclusions: The expert panel recommendations will serve as a guide to relevant stakeholders at a country level. Adaptation of these recommendations to each setting is important to accommodate the situation and needs of each country