Predictors of parental acceptability of COVID-19 vaccination for children, especially trust in primary health care: a cross-sectional online survey from Iran

Abstract

Abstract BACKGROUND Children are the most susceptible to vaccination within the people, thus it's critical to evaluate parents' and guardians' willingness to vaccinate their children. This study aims to investigate the acceptance prevalence of COVID-19 vaccination among children under 18 in Iran and its relationship with trust in the Priamry Health Care (PHC) system. METHOD A cross-sectional online survey of 549 Iranian parents was conducted between January and March of 2023. After adjusting for background factors, multivariate logistic regression model was applied to investigate the relationships between COVID-19 vaccination related factors and trust in PHC with parental acceptability. RESULTS Of 549 parents with the age range was between 19 to 67 years (median = 38 years), 358 (65.2%) were female. The prevalence of vaccine acceptance and vaccine hesitancy among parents was 257 (46.8%), and 53.2%, respectively. After adjusting for background features, child’s age (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] 0.81, 95% CI 0.71–0.91), child vaccination doses (1-dose: AOR 14.72, 95% CI 6.44–33.65, 2-dose: AOR 32.54, 95% CI 15.22–69.57), child’s disease (AOR 5.31, 95% CI 2.19–12.85), and trust in PHC (AOR 1.01, 95% CI 1.00-1.02) were associated with greater parental acceptability of COVID-19 vaccination. CONCLUSIONS The findings of this study suggest that the child’s age, vaccine doses received by the child, child’s diseases, and trust in PHC are significant in parental acceptability of COVID-19 vaccination for children in Iran. The results of this can be used in service planning regarding children COVID-19 vaccination.