Fig. 1.

Vaccine Hesitancy. (A): Vaccine Discussion and Hesitancy Rate. NID participants who had discussed vaccination with their neurological healthcare professional were less hesitant than the participants who had not discussed vaccination with their neurologists p=0.007. Among those who had the discussion, the hesitancy rate was lower when the neurologists recommended vaccination during their discussion (p < 0.0001). P-values in the figure refer to comparison of hesitancy rates between indicated groups. *23 patients were not sure if they had discussed the vaccine with their neurologists and were excluded from this figure. (B) Vaccine Hesitancy Reasons. Patients who responded “No” to the question, “Do you plan to be vaccinated against COVID-19?” were asked to select the reason(s) why they did not want to be vaccinated. Participants were able to select more than one reason. Responses from both the MS/NID group (navy, n= 134) and control group (n=56) are displayed here. MS/NID patients were more likely to report fear of a neurologic and/or demyelinating event as reasons they would not get vaccinated. *Answers provided as free text for “Other” in both groups most commonly included: perceiving oneself as low risk for contracting COVID-19, vaccines only having emergency use authorization, and fear of unknown long term side effects. Abbreviations: MS (multiple sclerosis), NID (neuroinflammatory disease).