  Background: Vaccination programs are effective only when a significant
percentage of people are vaccinated. However, vaccine acceptance varies among
communities around the world. Social media usage is arguably one of the factors
affecting public attitudes towards vaccines. Objective: This study aims to
identify if the social media usages factors can be used to predict attitudes
and behavior towards the COVID-19 vaccines among the people in the Arab world.
Methods: An online survey was conducted in the Arab countries and 217 Arab
people participated in this study. Logistic regression was applied to identify
what demographics and social media usage factors predict public attitudes and
behavior towards the COVID-19 vaccines. Results: Of the 217 participants,
56.22% of them were willing to accept the vaccine and 41.47% of them were
hesitant. This study shows that none of the social media usages factors were
significant enough to predict the actual vaccine acceptance behavior. Whereas
the analysis showed few of the social media usage factors can predict public
attitudes towards the COVID-19 vaccines. For example, frequent social media
users were 2.85 times more likely to agree that the risk of COVID-19 is being
exaggerated (OR=2.85, 95% CI=0.86-9.45, p=0.046) than infrequent social media
users. Whereas participants having more trust in vaccine information shared by
their contacts are less likely to agree that decision-makers have verified that
vaccines are safe (OR=0.528, 95% CI= 0.276-1.012, p=0.05). Conclusion: The use
of social media and information shared on it may affect public attitudes
towards COVID-19 vaccines. Therefore, disseminating correct and validated
information about COVID-19 and other vaccines on social media is important for
increasing public trust and countering the impact of incorrect and
misinformation.
