Division of Infectious Diseases; University of Pennsylvania; Philadelphia, PA USA.
Hum Vaccin Immunother. 2013 Feb;9(2):430-6. doi: 10.4161/hv.22065. Epub 2012 Oct 2.
There has been a rise in the number of vaccine-hesitant parents (VHPs) in the US, many of whom express reservations about administering the MMR vaccine to their children. We studied the relative importance of attitudinal barriers to MMR vaccination among VHPs with differing levels of MMR vaccine-hesitancy.
We performed a cross-sectional exploratory analysis of a parental survey that assessed common vaccination barriers among MMR vaccine-hesitant parents in Michigan. The outcome of interest was parental MMR vaccination intention, measured on an 11-point scale, with higher numbers corresponding to greater intent. The relative importance of identified barriers to MMR vaccination was assessed across levels of vaccine hesitancy. Exploratory factor analysis was performed to identify underlying attitudinal constructs and assess if these constructs' importance varied depending on the degree of parental vaccine hesitancy.
Our study population included 79 Michigan parents who initially screened positive for MMR vaccine-hesitancy. Within this sample, 47% of parents were unsure about their vaccination intentions and 20% expressed negative intentions, while a third (33%) of parents had positive vaccination intentions when further questioned. After grouping the barriers in our study into four underlying factors, parents with negative vaccination intentions had statistically significant higher factor score for the factor "risks versus benefits" and a statistically significant lower mean score for "vaccine importance," compared with parents with unsure or positive intentions.
In this exploratory study we found that vaccine-specific concerns have varying salience for parents based on their vaccination intention. Thus, future educational programs likely should tailor messages based on the degree of vaccine hesitancy expressed in their target populations in order to improve their overall effectiveness.
美国的疫苗犹豫父母（VHPs）数量有所增加，其中许多人对给孩子接种麻疹、腮腺炎、风疹（MMR）疫苗表示保留意见。我们研究了在具有不同 MMR 疫苗犹豫程度的 VHPs 中，MMR 疫苗接种的态度障碍的相对重要性。
我们对密歇根州对 MMR 疫苗犹豫不决的父母进行的父母调查进行了横断面探索性分析，评估了常见的疫苗接种障碍。感兴趣的结果是父母对 MMR 疫苗接种的意图，用 11 点量表衡量，数字越高表示意图越大。根据疫苗犹豫程度评估 MMR 疫苗接种的相对重要性。进行探索性因素分析以确定潜在的态度结构，并评估这些结构的重要性是否取决于父母疫苗犹豫的程度。
我们的研究人群包括最初筛查出 MMR 疫苗犹豫的密歇根州 79 位父母。在这个样本中，47%的父母对他们的接种意愿不确定，20%表示有负面意愿，而三分之一（33%）的父母在进一步询问时表示有积极的接种意愿。将我们研究中的障碍分为四个潜在因素后，与有不确定或积极意愿的父母相比，有消极接种意愿的父母在“风险与收益”因素上的得分统计学上显著更高，而在“疫苗重要性”上的平均得分统计学上显著更低。
在这项探索性研究中，我们发现疫苗特定的担忧对父母的重要性因他们的接种意愿而异。因此，未来的教育计划可能应该根据目标人群中表达的疫苗犹豫程度来调整信息，以提高其整体效果。
