Side Effects of Covishield Vaccine among Frontline Healthcare Workers of a Tertiary Health Care Center

Abstract

Introduction: COVID started in late 2019 and within a short time became a pandemic. With increasing morbidity and mortality and therapeutics not doing wonders, scientists were in the attempt to develop vaccines as a mitigating measure. With continuous efforts and developments, different vaccines were developed and rolled out gradually in different countries. Concerns were notable for occurrence of side effects. Hence this study was done to assess the side effects following Covishield vaccination in Nepal at the initial stage.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional study done via snowball sampling method among healthcare workers at a tertiary hospital after obtaining ethical consent from the institutional review committee (Ref no:10/2078/2079) from July 1st, 2021 to July 15th, 2021. Total of 139 respondents were obtained. The data were entered into SPSS and analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. P-value ≤ 0.05 was considered statistically significant.

Results: Majority (64.7%) were female healthcare workers. More than half (52.3%) used premedication in an attempt to avoid the side effects. Most (90.6%) reported at least one side effect to the first dose and approximately three-quarter (74.3%) reported side effect to the second dose. Common side effects were pain at injection site, muscle pain, headache, fatigue and weakness. Most of the side effects were higher with the first dose as compared to the second dose.

Conclusions: Prevalence of side effects was comparable to other studies. Side effects were common with Covishield vaccination, significantly more with the first dose as compared to the second dose. Female gender, younger age and past covid infection were associated with higher occurrence of side effects; however not found to be statistically significant.