Willingness of Brazilian caregivers in having their children and adolescents vaccinated against Covid-19.

BACKGROUND

The vaccination of children and adolescents for the prevention of Covid-19 is important to:decrease in deaths and hospitalizations, prevent multisystem inflammatory syndrome, avoid long-term complications and decrease the suspension of on-site classes. Despite of these benefits, some studies have shown that some caregivers are still hesitancy.

METHODS

This is a voluntary and anonymous online survey conducted from November 17 to December 14, 2021, in Brazil, through a free-of-charge platform with a link provided on social networks. A bivariate analysis was conducted with the independent variables, with vaccine hesitancy as the outcome variable, and a multivariate logistic model was used to calculated adjusted odds ratios.

RESULTS

The sample included 15,297 respondents. Approximately 13.3 % (2,028) of the caregivers were hesitant to vaccinate their children and adolescents against Covid-19 in at least one age group. The vaccination hesitanty rate of caregivers of children aged 0-4 years, 5-11 years and adolescents were 16 %, 13 %, 15 %, respectively. The principal factors associated with vaccine hesitancy were the following: belief that they need to wait longer, belief that children that had natural infection doesn't need to vaccinate and belief that vaccine has long term adverse effects.

INTERPRETATION: The present study showed that the willingness of caregivers to have their children and adolescents vaccinated in Brazil is high compared to data from adult and pediatric international studies. This study provides a profile of the hesitant caregivers considering their perspectives and beliefs regarding vaccines that can help the elaboration of strategies to increase vaccine adherence.