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. 2023 Dec 31;19(1):2203023.
doi: 10.1080/21645515.2023.2203023.

The collective voice of early phase COVID-19 vaccine trial participants: Insights for improving confidence in novel vaccines

Tonia M Thomas  1 , Susanne H Hodgson  2 , Katherine Emary  1 , Maia Patrick-Smith  3 , Rebecca Te Water Naude  3 , Arabella S V Stuart  1 , John Henry  3 , Marcus English  3 , Maria Moore  1 , Naomi Douglas  1 , Andrew J Pollard  1 , Samantha Vanderslott  4
Affiliations

The collective voice of early phase COVID-19 vaccine trial participants: Insights for improving confidence in novel vaccines

Tonia M Thomas et al. Hum Vaccin Immunother. .

Abstract

In early 2020, adult volunteers were invited to participate in a first-in-human trial of the COVID-19 vaccine, ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, in the United Kingdom (UK) at the height of the global pandemic when there was uncertainty regarding vaccine efficacy and side-effects. We conducted a retrospective survey of these uniquely situated individuals to gain insight into their views about the risks, motivations, and expectations of the trial and potential vaccine deployment. Our data from 349 respondents show that these volunteers were educated to a high-level with a clear understanding of the seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as an appreciation of the role of science and research in developing a vaccine to address this global problem. Individuals were primarily motivated with altruistic intent and expressed a desire to contribute to the scientific effort. Respondents appreciated that their participation was associated with risk but appeared comfortable that this risk was low. Through our analysis, we highlight these individuals as a group with strong levels of trust in science and a sense of societal responsibility, and therefore are a potential valuable resource to improve confidence in novel vaccines. Vaccine trial participants could offer a credible collective voice to support positive messaging around vaccination.

Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04324606.

Keywords: COVID-19; Vaccine trial; confidence; participants.

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Conflict of interest statement

Authors are contributors to intellectual property licensed by Oxford University Innovation to AstraZeneca.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Respondents’ motivations for participating in COV001. (a) Respondents’ agreement with statements regarding altruistic and personal motivations. (b) Correlation between participants responses to individual altruistic and personal motivation statements (Kendall’s Tau). (c) Spread of responses to altruistic and personal motivation statements.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
How participants’ age affected their motivations and concerns about participating in COV001. (a) Younger people (under 25 and 25–34) were more likely to have personal motivations than older people. (b) Younger people (under 25) also reflected higher levels of concern about trial safety.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Participants’ perceptions of risk relating to the trial: (a) Proportions of participants in agreement with statements regarding risk of participating in COV001. (b) Participant responses to statements regarding risk of participating in COV001. Responses to survey statements were coded numerically for analysis: strongly disagree = −2; disagree = −1; neither agree nor disagree = 0; agree = 1; strongly agree = 2. For box plot, thick black line indicates median, box edges indicate lower and upper quartiles.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Respondents’ trust in science (a) Respondents’ agreement with statements regarding COVID-19 and science. (b) Spread of responses to statements assessing trust in science.
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