Ms Jessica Xu1, Ms Libby Smith1,2, Dr Jessica Kaufmanc1,3, Dr Monsurul Hoq1, A/Prof Valerie Sung1,2,3
1Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Parkville, Australia, 2The Royal Children’s Hospital, Parkville, Australia, 3The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia
COVID-19 vaccines can prevent severe symptoms and maximising its uptake is important in preventing morbidity and mortality, especially in vulnerable populations. There is no known data on intentions or uptake for deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children who may be more vulnerable to the effects of COVID-19 due to associated health conditions. This information is important for service provision planning. Our study aimed to describe parental intentions to vaccinate their DHH children in Victoria against COVID-19, and the factors associated with COVID-19 vaccine intention.
As part of a 2021 online survey sent to participants of the Victorian Childhood Hearing Longitudinal Databank to document the COVID-19 pandemic’s impacts on DHH children and their families, we asked parents’ intentions to vaccinate their child against COVID-19 using a 5-point Likert scale. We identified a priori factors that could influence parental vaccine intentions for their child and described vaccine intention as ‘No/Not Sure’ vs ‘Yes’.
Of 497 parents sent the survey, 354 (71.2%) answered the questions regarding COVID-19 vaccination. The majority of parents intended to vaccinate their child; intention decreased with child age. Parents were more likely to intend to vaccinate their child if they were vaccinated themselves than if they were not. Parents were less likely to intend to vaccinate their child if their child had a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. Parents living in more socio-economically advantaged areas were less likely to intend to vaccinate their child compared with other areas, although mothers with tertiary education were slightly more likely than those without tertiary education to intend to vaccinate their child.
Our study suggests high vaccination intention rates in a cohort of Australian parents for their DHH children. This is reassuring considering DHH children frequently access health services and often have associated health conditions which may predispose them to the effects of COVID-19.
Biography:
Jessica Xu is currently a PhD student at the University of Melbourne doing research on methods to deal with missing data in Sequential multiple assignment randomized trials (SMART). She was awarded a Bachelor of Biomedicine (2018) and a Master of Biostatistics (2021) from the University of Melbourne. She worked as a research assistant with the Victorian Childhood Hearing Longitudinal Databank (VicCHILD) research group at Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in 2021. Her email address is jessicax2@student.unimelb.edu.au.