Understanding Parental Attitudes toward Vaccination: Comparative Assessment of a New Tool and Its Trial on a Representative Sample in Hungary

Abstract

Background: Last year’s epidemic experience proved that measurement of vaccine hesitancy is undeniably important. Existing methods for measuring this propensity are still either too specific, concerning a single vaccine, or only describe the general attitude towards vaccination. When a specific, but previously unknown infection and vaccine (such as SARS-CoV2) appear, these limitations are meaningful. Methods: Based on a method used to identify social prejudice, we created a new tool to assess vaccine hesitancy assessment and to study parental attitudes toward existing and non-existing (‘Piresian’) vaccines. After validating it with traditional tools for the measurement of vaccine hesitancy, we used the new tool for the demographic characterisation of different vaccine hesitant parent groups in Hungary. The data collected in 2017 on 430 parents, sorted by type of settlement and by geographic region, are representative of Hungarian households with children aged 0 to 18 years. Results: Our results show that attitudes towards a non-existing (‘Piresian’) vaccine have strong correlations with those towards existing vaccines (p < 0.001). No gender differences in vaccine hesitancy were found using either method. Notably, rejection was significantly higher among parents with low educational levels. Conclusion: The Piresian measurement of vaccine hesitancy offers a simple way to detect vaccine-hesitant groups, reliably quantitating vaccine hesitancy as measured for real vaccinations.

Health literacy and patient rights awareness in ethnic Hungarian mothers in Eastern Europe

“…In this subjective measure, respondents judge their skills in the dimensions of accessing, understanding, appraising, and applying health-related information in the domains of health promotion, disease prevention and health care. The original longer version of the questionnaire has by now been shortened and validated to allow a more adequate and general usage and has by now a version consisting of 16 questions used on the European continent and beyond, which was validated in several languages, including Hungarian, and used on different samples of the Hungarian speaking general population (23,24).…”