Data presented at the European Academy of Dermatology and Venerology (EADV) 30th Congress has revealed that psoriasis and psoriatic patients have been hesitant in receiving the COVID-19 vaccine.
Researchers in Spain have studied the sentiment towards COVID-19 vaccination in biologic-treated patients with psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis. The data was collected via social media to minimise the limitations of traditional surveys, which captured only data from patients that could be impacted by the presence of a doctor.
10,922 social media posts were identified between January and March 2021 from patients in the US, UK, France, Germany and Spain using pre-defined keywords, which were filtered down to 624 posts.
Findings suggest that COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in patients was driven by safety concerns and concerns about aggravation of their underlying condition. Main factors driving this perception were potential side effects post-vaccination, effect on their autoimmune conditions and lack of trial data.
Lara van der Schoot, lead author of the study, said, “Our analysis reveals no differences in risk of respiratory tract infections between biologics. Our preliminary results suggest that biological treatments do not impact psoriasis patients’ susceptibility to COVID-19 infections, although this needs to be further investigated.”
