Perceptions and Willingness of Healthcare workers for COVID-19 vaccine
for their children aged <18 years from a Tertiary care
Institute of Eastern Uttar Pradesh, India
Abstract
Background COVID-19 vaccination program for adults in India is
one of the highly successful vaccination drives globally but acceptance
of COVID-19 for children and adolescents is largely unknown. As parents
are primary decision-makers for their children, we aimed to assess
parents’ perceptions and intentions regarding COVID-19 vaccination for
children in India. Aim To assess parental perceptions and
intention to get COVID-19 vaccination for their children
(aged<18 years), Materials and Methods A
cross-sectional anonymous web-based survey was designed. Healthcare
workers of a tertiary care institute of Eastern U.P., India having any
children aged <18 years were the study population. They were
recruited through snowball sampling and were sent the study
questionnaire in Google form through email and WhatsApp. Bi-variate
analysis was performed to find out the predictors of child vaccination
willingness among the parents. Results A total of 388
healthcare workers parents (HCWPs) having a child < 18 years
of age completed the survey. Mean age of the parents were 40.28 ±11.34
years. Majority (96.9%) received recommended 2 doses of COVIID-19
vaccine. Around 91% of the parents agreed that COVID-19 vaccines are
important for child’s health whereas 89% agreed that COVID-19 vaccines
are effective. A total 356 (91.7%) participants shown willing to
vaccinate their child with COVID-19 vaccine, 91.3% of them intended to
do so as soon as possible Factors found to be significantly associated
with the stated willingness for child COVID-19 vaccination among the
participants were younger age, female gender, urban residence, absence
of any chronic illness, lower monthly income, history of COVID-19 in
child and the child immunized with all routine childhood vaccines.
Parental concerns mainly centered around vaccine need and its safety.
Conclusion The healthcare worker parents (HCWPs) have positive
attitude and low vaccine hesitancy towards COVID-19 vaccination for
children with around 92% of them currently willing to vaccinate their
children with COVID-19 vaccine. Further longitudinal studies are
required to be conducted to assess the trend of parental acceptance of
COVID vaccine.