Comparison of knowledge, perception and willingness to receive covid-19 vaccines among tertiary students in Osun State, Nigeria

Background: Vaccination remains a potent way to curb the present covid-19 global pandemic. Objectives: To assess knowledge, perception and willingness to receive covid-19 vaccines among tertiary students in Nigeria. Methods: In the descriptive cross-sectional study, a sample size of 750 respondents was randomly selected from a university, polytechnic and college of education (COE) in Osun State, Nigeria. Independent sample T and Pearson correlation tests were used to analyse the responses. Results: There was a significant increase in the percentage score of poor perception, relative to good perception among the university and polytechnic respondents. Among the COE respondents, significant increases in the percentage scores of poor knowledge, perception and willingness to receive covid-19 vaccines, relative to the good variables were observed. Weak positive correlations between knowledge and willingness & perception and willingness to receive covid-19 vaccines among all the respondents were noted. In addition, there was a significant increase in good perception to covid-19 vaccines among university and COE, relative to polytechnic respondents. Asides, a significant increase in good willingness to receive covid-19 vaccines was observed among the university, compared to COE respondents. Conclusion: There is poor knowledge, perception and willingness to receive covid-19 vaccines among tertiary students in Osun State, Nigeria. Keywords: Covid-19 vaccines; knowledge; perception; tertiary students; willingness.