Vaccine hesitancy existed among mothers in UT: Study

Naina Mishra

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 3

‘Vaccine hesitancy’ amid the Covid vaccination programme is not a new phenomenon as such hesitancies have existed in the past as well, revealed a study carried out by a PGI doctor in the city over a period of one year.

Among 305 mothers, around 97 per cent thought childhood vaccines were important, effective and a good way to protect against diseases. However, 69 per cent women preferred their children to receive fewer co-administered vaccines and 39 per cent were concerned about the side effects.

Around 8 per cent mothers had refused a vaccine at some point, and mothers who were vaccine-hesitant had 4.63 time greater odds of vaccine refusal. Around 9 per cent had delayed a vaccine, and the delay was significantly higher among mothers who were vaccine-hesitant.

As compared to the “other caste” groups, the Scheduled Castes or the Scheduled Tribes had 3.48 times greater odds of vaccine-hesitancy. Those with high school education had 0.10 times the odds of vaccine-hesitancy compared to those with less education. Finally, those having more antenatal care visits were less vaccine-hesitant. “In this study, there was a positive relationship between education and vaccine hesitancy, with more educated mothers less likely to be vaccine-hesitant,” said the study. It describes the socio-demographic patterns of vaccine-hesitancy in the city. Mothers of children less than five years old were sampled from a two-stage cluster, a systematic sampling based on anganwadi childcare centres of the UT.

The study took place between June 2017 and June 2018. It was embedded in a larger project the aim of which was to characterise measles antibody levels. Vaccine hesitancy was measured using a 10-item vaccine hesitancy

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