Attitudes, perceptions, and experiences of Western Australians towards vaccine safety surveillance systems following COVID-19 vaccines: A qualitative descriptive study.

Objective: Concerns regarding adverse events following immunisation are a barrier to vaccine uptake. Health professionals use vaccine safety surveillance systems (VSSSs) to monitor vaccines and inform the public of safety data. With little known about public attitudes, perceptions, and experiences with VSSS, we examined them in the context of COVID-19 vaccinations in Western Australia.
Methods: Researchers conducted 158 qualitative interviews between March 2021 and May 2022 within the broader [name redacted] project. Data regarding VSSS were coded in NVivo using the deductive and inductive methods.
Results: Despite some not knowing about VSSS, participants expected follow-up post COVID-19 vaccination. Vaccine hesitant or refusing participants knew about VSSS and regarded these systems positively. Additional considerations concerned the reliability of data collected by VSSS.
Conclusion: Perceptions of VSSS signal a lack of understanding about how these systems work. Future studies should further explore the public's understanding of VSSS, whether VSSS improves vaccine confidence, and how governments can better communicate to the public about VSSS.
Implications for Public Health: Lack of understanding of how VSSS operate may be stymying attempts to build public vaccine confidence. Healthcare providers and governments could build public knowledge and understanding of VSSS to mitigate concerns of adverse events following immunisation.
Competing Interests: Conflicts of interest Katie Attwell is a specialist advisor to the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation. The "Coronavax" project is funded by the Government of Western Australia, with all funds paid to institutions. Funders are not involved in the conceptualisation, design, data collection, analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of manuscripts. Associate Professor Attwell is a recipient of a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award funded by the Australian Research Council of the Australian Government (DE19000158). Other authors have no conflict to share.
(Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)