Abstract
Vaccine hesitancy has been considered one of the most severe threats to global health, as it represents an obstacle to achieving adequate vaccination coverage. Recent research studies aimed at investigating the propensity for anti-COVID vaccination among adults have found a high prevalence of vaccine hesitancy, but few data are available on parental vaccine hesitancy. We therefore built an anonymous online survey to investigate the factors related to the vaccine hesitancy of parents of adolescents between 12 and 17 years of age, with a special focus on demographic factors and the domains of confidence and complacency. The online survey was conducted by using the Crowd Signal platform from 15 July to 16 August 2021, in Italy. A total of 1799 analyzable questionnaires were analyzed. Overall, Favorable and Doubtful parents declared a higher level of confidence on safety and efficacy of pediatric vaccines and on confidence in health institutions than Hesitant/Reluctant ones (p-values < 0.001). The univariate multinomial logistic regression analysis and the multivariate multinomial logistic regression analysis showed that the Hesitant/Reluctant parents were younger than 40 years of age, with a secondary-school or three-year degree, free-lance, with a family income below €28,000, with an erroneous perception of the risk of COVID-19 as disease and with fear of anti-COVID vaccination. These results, which should be confirmed in a larger population and in different geographical areas, should lead Institutions and stakeholders to identify targeted communication tools to improve trust in health institutions, especially by younger parents.
Highlights
After the discovery in Wuhan, China, of the human-to-human transmission of a new beta-coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) [1], the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the pandemic spread of the virus that causes the disease called coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19) [2]
Since December 2020, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has progressively conditionally authorized the first anti-COVID vaccines, of which two with mRNA (Comirnaty [4], produced by Pfizer/BioNTech, initially indicated for subjects ≥16 years of age; and Spikevax [5], produced by Moderna, initially recommended for subjects ≥18 years old) and two with a non-replicating adenoviral vector (Vaxzevria, produced by AstraZeneca/Oxford [6], and COVID-19 Vaccine Janssen [7], produced by Johnson & Johnson, both recommended for subjects aged ≥18 years)
In our survey aimed at the parents of adolescents between 12 and 17 years of age, vaccine hesitancy was mainly determined by three aspects: “trust” in vaccination and health institutions; the “convenience”, i.e., the ease with which vaccination can be accessed; and “complacency”, that is, from the low perception of the risk of disease [12]
Summary
After the discovery in Wuhan, China, of the human-to-human transmission of a new beta-coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) [1], the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the pandemic spread of the virus that causes the disease called coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19) [2]. Since December 2020, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has progressively conditionally authorized the first anti-COVID vaccines, of which two with mRNA (Comirnaty [4], produced by Pfizer/BioNTech, initially indicated for subjects ≥16 years of age; and Spikevax [5], produced by Moderna, initially recommended for subjects ≥18 years old) and two with a non-replicating adenoviral vector (Vaxzevria, produced by AstraZeneca/Oxford [6], and COVID-19 Vaccine Janssen [7], produced by Johnson & Johnson, both recommended for subjects aged ≥18 years). In Italy, the vaccination campaign began in January 2021, and it was conducted by identifying target populations [8] (old elderly and “fragile” individuals presenting risk factors for severe COVID-19 disease, healthcare providers and law enforcement) and progressively opening to the whole population. Studies on vaccination hesitancy have shown that vaccine hesitancy is due to a complex of factors, which can vary in different cultures and over time
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