Attitudes toward a COVID-19 vaccine and vaccination status in cancer patients: correspondence.

Dear Editor,

We would like to share ideas on the publication “Attitudes toward a COVID-19 vaccine and vaccination status in cancer patients: a cross-sectional survey” (Heyne et al. 2022). Heyne et al. concluded that “Majority of respondents are positive about COVID-19 vaccine, accompanied by a very high rate of COVID-19 immunization in our sample (Heyne et al. 2022)”. The attitude towards COVID-19 is an important factor determining the acceptance of vaccination. This is according to the basic principle of knowledge–attitude–practice principle. The good acceptance rate in the present report might report good local system for promoting COVID-19 vaccination in the study setting. We agree with Heyne et al. that a larger study in more number of subjects might give different observations. This might clarify the effect of different local communication system on COVID-19 for cancerous patients. A recent report from Portugal also showed that specific factors such as education level, rural residence and the belief in vaccine effectiveness were associated with vaccine acceptance (Sousa et al. 2022). Nevertheless, the COVID-19 situation rapidly change. The new data on vaccine efficacy and safety might also affect the attitude and practice of cancerous patient. A change of attitude and practice at different period is an interesting issue for further researching.