Abstract
Background: Fear and anxiety are feelings of imaginary threat and imagination of an unknown and unfamiliar phenomenon. In other words, the unpleasant and vague feeling is caused by the fact that a person expects an undesirable event to happen. The purpose of this study was to investigate the prevalence of fear and anxiety about white coats and needles in people who referred to the vaccination center in 2021.
Methods: This descriptive study was conducted in the vaccination center of Mazandaran province in 2021. After obtaining informed consent to participate in the research, a questionnaire was given to the subjects to measure their level of fear and anxiety about needles and white coats. The data were analyzed by SPSS software.
Results: Of the 112 participants, 87 were male and 25 were female, and the age of the participants was 25.38±10.80. Of these, 43.9% were the first dose and 56.1% were the second dose. In addition, 32.5% of the vaccines were injected with AstraZeneca and 67.5% with Sinopharm. There was no significant relationship between gender and anxiety (P=0.65). However, a significant relationship was found between anxiety and education and age (P=0.000, P=0.01) in the first and second doses (P=0.001), demonstrating that the anxiety of people affected by the effects decreased in the second dose.
Conclusion: The results of the present study indicated that the greatest levels of fear and anxiety toward needles and phobia of white coats were common in the age range of 12–20 years. Finally, the anxiety and fear of the participants decreased in the second dose.