A Comprehensive Systematic Review Protocol of Vaccine Hesitancy in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

Abstract Background: Vaccine hesitancy has presented to public health, especially the fight against vaccine-preventable diseases, a great challenge in promoting global health. In this coronavirus era, it has become important to examine the concept of vaccine resistance, and effect adequate measures to clamp down on vaccine hesitancy. In an attempt to address vaccine hesitancy, some studies have determined the causes of vaccine hesitancy, reported on the reasons why individuals in resource-constraint countries delay and ultimately reject vaccination interventions, and provided evidence on measures that have been successful at reducing vaccine hesitancy. This comprehensive review protocol, which has been developed as a teaching tool, aims to present a stepwise approach to examining these studies.Methods: The protocol will guide the conduct of the systematic review in an orderly manner and by the allocated number of reviewers: the search strategy development and testing (2); the database search (6); the titles and abstract screening (3); full-text screening (3); the data extraction (7); and the quality assessment of included studies (2). The search strategy has been tested with results in 3 databases from inception to June 30, 2021: MEDLINE via EBSCOhost (n=1364), CINAHL via EBSCOhost (n=91), and Web of Science (n=3472). The included research papers will be reviewed according to the convergent segregated approach as explained in the Joanna Briggs Institute’s (JBI) manual. Conclusion: The review protocol, when successfully applied to conduct the systematic review, will provide some guidance to policy-makers as we tackle coronavirus through vaccination intervention. Systematic review registration DOI: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/BVP4S