PARENTS' ATTITUDES TOWARDS CHILDREN'S VAC-CINATION

Introduction: In 2018, working group of World Health Organization stressed the importance of eliminating meningitis by 2030. In Greece, the total mortality of meningococcal meningitis is usually between 5 to 10%.Purpose: To  explore parents' knowledge and attitudes towards vaccination of meningitis serogroup b. Material and Method: Non-experimental quantitative cross-sectional study of 284 parents with private and public health insurance from January to April 2021 using the Vaccination Acceptance and Hesitance Scale and questions on knowledge and attitudes about meningococcal meningitis b. SPSS v22 was used for statistical analysis and the significance level was set at 0.05. Results: There was a positivity towards vaccination against meningococcal b. Most parents willing to vaccinate their children and to have information mainly from the pediatrician. Statistically significant differences in vaccination acceptance scale were shown by the presence of a family pediatrician (p=0.003), level of education (p=0.003), confidence in the usefulness of the vaccine (p<0.001), as well as concerns about the safety and efficacy of the vaccine (p=0.003). The hesitancy scale was associated with belief in the usefulness of vaccines (p<0.001) and concern about vaccine safety and efficacy (p<0.001). The two scales Acceptance and Hesitancy found to be negatively correlated (p<0.001) indicating that the lower the hesitance the greater the acceptance regarding vaccines. Conclusions: Effective policy-making strategies, the family pediatrician and parental information are the important key factors in improving knowledge and therefore reducing vaccination hesitancy.