Parents' Perceptions and Intention to Vaccinate Their Children Against COVID-19: Results From a Cross-Sectional National Survey in India

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Abstract

Despite the success of adult vaccination against COVID-19, providing vaccines to children remains a challenge for policymakers globally. As parents are primary decision-makers for their children, we aimed to assess parents' perceptions and intentions regarding COVID-19 vaccination in India.

Methods

A cross-sectional web-based study was designed, parents or caregivers ( N = 770) were recruited through snowball sampling using Google form. Cross-tabulation was performed by parents' intention to vaccinate their children against COVID-19 virus with sociodemographic characteristics and their risk perception toward COVID-19, trust in the healthcare system, and their history of vaccine hesitancy behavior. Multivariable logistic regression analysis was performed to compute the predictors of child vaccination intention among Indian parents.

Results

Seven hundred and seventy parents across the country have completed the survey. Of the 770 participants, 258 (33.5%) have shown intent to vaccinate their children. The stated likelihood of child vaccination was greater among parents who had a bachelor's degree or higher education (aOR: 1.98, 95% CI: 1.15–3.51); as well as among parents who intended to vaccinate themselves (aOR: 2.35, 95% CI: 1.30–4.67). Parental concerns centered around vaccine safety and side effects.

Conclusion

Indian parents reported high knowledge of the COVID-19 virus and were aware of the development of a vaccine. However, about one-third of parents intended to vaccinate their children, and about half of them were not sure whether to vaccinate their children or not against the COVID-19 virus. The study highlighted the need for health promotion strategies that promote vaccine uptake among parents.

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  1. SciScore for 10.1101/2021.10.30.21265449: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsConsent: Informed consent was obtained from all parents (18 years or older and currently living in India).
    IRB: Ethical Considerations: Ethical approval was granted for the study by the institutional Research Ethics Committee of Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research(PGIMER), Chandigarh, India.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    STATA 15.0 software (StataCorp LP, Texas, USA) was used for all statistical analyses.
    STATA
    suggested: (Stata, RRID:SCR_012763)
    StataCorp
    suggested: (Stata, RRID:SCR_012763)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).


    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    It is essential to thus engage various level of health care providers and strategize vaccine messages to parents especially from lower education status Limitations of this study that should be considered include the sampling strategy adopted by the study which may not be representative of all parents in the country, hence limits the generalizability of our finding. The cross-sectional design of the study should be interpretated carefully when accessing overall prevalence of vaccine hesitancy among parents in India. Our sample represented individuals with internet access and having mobile literacy. This does not necessarily reflect the country wide perception of parents towards vaccine and their intention to get children vaccinated. Despite the above limitations, our study assessed nationally representative sample of parents regarding their perceptions and intentions to vaccinate their children at a critical time, just as adult COVID-19 vaccination programs was initiated in India. Our findings reminiscent of recent research suggesting that there is a low demand for COVID-19 vaccine among parents, and highlights the need for longitudinal studies to measure the acceptability of a COVID-19 vaccine at different intervals. Future studies are thus required to supplement our current findings to enhance vaccine uptake among children in India. Nevertheless, our study establishes evidence regarding parent’s hesitancy towards getting their children vaccinated and their concerns in coming...

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.


    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.


    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.


    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.


    About SciScore

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