COVQUAL

Overview

Led by Dr Samantha Vanderslott, ’COVQUAL: trial participants motivations, views, and experiences’ is a collaborative, interdisciplinary, and mixed-methods research project surveying and interviewing vaccine trial participants during the COVID-19 pandemic. We recruited from a purposeful sample of 770 healthy volunteers aged 18–55 years enrolled in a first-in-human COVID-19 vaccine trial in Oxford, UK.

The research aims to find out about the participants’ motivations, views, and experiences in the trial, which also involved reflections on the pandemic and a (then) future COVID-19 vaccine. For the survey, we received 349 responses, and we conducted semi-structured interviews with 102 participants.

Key Publications

Thomas, T. M., Hodgson, S. H., Emary, K., Patrick-Smith, M., te Water Naude, R., Stuart, A. S., … & Vanderslott, S. (2023). The collective voice of early phase COVID-19 vaccine trial participants: Insights for improving confidence in novel vaccines. Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics, 19(1), 2203023.

Pilbeam, C., Anthierens, S., Vanderslott, S., Tonkin-Crine, S., & Wanat, M. (2022). Methodological and ethical considerations when conducting qualitative interview research with healthcare professionals: reflections and recommendations as a result of a pandemic. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 21. doi.org/10.1177/16094069221077763

Vanderslott, S., Palmer, A., Thomas, T., Greenhough, B., Stuart, A., Henry, J.A., English, M., Naude, R.D.W., Patrick-Smith, M., Douglas, N. and Moore, M., (2021) Co-producing Human and Animal Experimental Subjects: Exploring the Views of UK COVID-19 Vaccine Trial Participants on Animal Testing. Science, Technology, & Human Values. November. doi:10.1177/01622439211057084

Vanderslott, S., Emary, K., te Water Naude, R., English, M., Thomas, T., Patrick-Smith, M., Henry, J., Douglas, N., Moore, M., Stuart, A. and Hodgson, S.H., (2021). Vaccine nationalism and internationalism: perspectives of COVID-19 vaccine trial participants in the United Kingdom. BMJ Global Health6.10: e006305