A survey study investigating the public's perception of vaccine hesitant parents

Abstract

Vaccine hesitancy has been a growing concern in the UK for many years. Health services are failing to meet national targets annually and uptake in childhood immunisations has rapidly decreased, causing the UK to recently declare a national outbreak in the once controlled measles virus. In order to tackle this growing public health concern, it is vital that further understanding of public knowledge, understanding and reasonings behind hesitancy is established. At present, there is a significant lack of research into the public’s knowledge, awareness, and perceptions of vaccine hesitant parents. This study analyses current awareness, knowledge and perception surrounding the topic of vaccine hesitancy and vaccine hesitant parents. This study took mainly a quantitative approach, through the use of an anonymous, online questionnaire, posted to the researcher’s personal social media platforms. The questionnaire gathered both qualitative and quantitative data including open-ended questions to allow participants the opportunity to express personal thoughts and opinions. The researcher used a convenience sampling method, to obtain 62 participants. Data obtained in this study was converted to SPSS software for detailed statistical analysis of quantitative data along with comparing this data to the written qualitative responses. This study used a number of comparison graphs, to establish any relevant patterns and trends, amongst both forms of data, presented in the forms of bar and pie charts.

The findings from this study indicated that women are more likely to participate and engage in studies relating to vaccine hesitancy, and awareness of this topic is extremely low in men, compared to women, and younger adults- middle aged individuals are more likely to be considered vaccine hesitant, compared to those aged 60+. This study has also found that the public has an in depth understanding of the public health implications, caused by vaccine hesitancy and can clearly identify a range of affected key areas. When looking to understand the public's perceptions on vaccine hesitant parents, the media has portrayed these individuals to be ‘uneducated’. However, this study has found this to be untrue, as all but one participant (who chose not to state), have some level of education. This study has discovered that a very small number of participants identify as vaccine hesitant, however data from this study has found more participants are showing significant signs of hesitancy, leading to believe this could be due to fear of judgement or lack of awareness. This study has found that the majority of participants are accepting of childhood immunisations which would match the national statistics, and although misconceptions surrounding vaccine hesitant parents being ‘uneducated’ and ‘misinformed’ has been identified within this study, the public seem to understand the potential genuine reasoning behind hesitancy and are mainly concerned about the ongoing spread of infectious diseases amongst communities.