Publication date: Dec 07, 2024

The knowledge gaps on the experiences of early career health professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic informed this study, which examined their vaccination status, personal and workplace experiences in South Africa. Wits longitudinal Study to Determine the Operation of the labour Market among its health professional graduates (WiSDOM), a prospective longitudinal cohort study established in 2017, consists of eight health professional groups of clinical associates, dentists, doctors, nurses, occupational therapists, oral hygienists, pharmacists and physiotherapists. As a part of annual follow-up surveys, we examined the personal and workplace experiences and the vaccination status of cohort members during the COVID-19 pandemic years: 2020 until 2022. We measured workplace experiences using a Likert scale that ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). We constructed a composite index of positive workplace COVID-19 support using a principal component analysis. We compared differences among the professional groups using proportions for categorical variables and means for numerical variables. We used multiple linear regression to investigate factors associated with the workplace COVID-19 support score and Firth’s penalised logistic regression for COVID-19 infection and vaccination. In 2022, the mean age of the 363 cohort members was 28. 9 (+/- 2. 1), and the majority were female (74. 2%). In 2020, 22. 6% of the cohort reported COVID-19 infections but this increased to 45. 3% by 2021. The composite index shows that doctors and nurses reported the lowest COVID-19 workplace support, while oral hygienists and dentists reported the most support. Although 89. 5% of cohort members reported full COVID-19 vaccination status, 9. 4% indicated non-intention to get vaccinated. The regression analysis showed that doctors (p

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