OBJECTIVES: We investigated COVID-19 vaccine acceptance among people with chronic diseases and the factors correlating with their vaccination hesitancy. METHODS: In this study, the articles were searched in PubMed, Ovid, EMBASE and web of science databases between December 2019 and October 2022. Cross-sectional studies, including the acceptance of the COVID-19 vaccine by patients with chronic diseases( ≥ 18 years old) ， were included in this study. The outcomes included the proportion and 95% confidence interval (95% CI) of chronic disease patients willing to be vaccinated and the odds ratio (OR) and 95% CI of correlating factors. The source of heterogeneity was analyzed through meta-regression and subgroup analysis. When I2 was greater than 50%, the random effect model was used for analysis. RESULTS: We included 31 studies involving 57875 patients with chronic disease. The overall COVID-19 vaccine acceptance among patients with chronic disease was 0.65 (95% CI, 0.59-0.72). The acceptance among the elderly patients was 0.53 (95% CI, 0.26-0.80). South America had the highest COVID-19 vaccine acceptance rate and Asia the lowest, while on a country level, the U.K. had the highest acceptance rate among patients with chronic diseases. People with rheumatic immune diseases had the lowest rate of COVID-19 vaccine acceptance. Concerns about vaccine safety had a statistically different effect on acceptance. CONCLUSIONS: The acceptance of COVID-19 vaccination was low among patients with chronic diseases. The health systems ought to focus on educating specific groups of individuals on the benefits of COVID-19 vaccination and addressing safety concerns. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
- Adults
- Older adults
- Vaccine/vaccination
- Acceptance
- COVID-19
