Socio-demographic factors associated with low compliance with vaccination in parents of preschool children

The aim of the study is to assess the relationship between low parental compliance with child immunization and individual socio-demographic factors.

Materials and methods. An anonymous online questionary was sent to people whose children attend preschool educational institutions. 890 respondents from 5 cities of the Russian Federation and 2 cities of the Republic of Belarus took part in the survey. To assess the relationship with such potential risk factors as city of residence, age of respondents, number of children in the family, level of education of parents, level of family income, binary logistic regression analysis was performed. Odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (95%CI) were calculated. R 4.3.1 (RStudio) environment was used for statistical analysis.

Results. 78.5% of all respondents stated a positive attitude towards vaccination. After receiving the survey results, respondents were divided into two groups: group 1 (180 people): parents with a low level of compliance with child immunization (they do not vaccinate their children or vaccinate them partially, not with all the vaccines from the vaccination schedule); group 2 (710 people): parents with a high level of compliance with child immunization (they vaccinate their children with all vaccines on time or with a delay in the schedule due to episodes of acute illnesses of the child). According to the results of logistic regression analysis, the factors statistically significantly associated with a lower level of adherence were: parent’s age over 45 years compared to 18-24 years (OR 3,32; 95% CI 1,11–10,35), professional but not higher education (compared to higher education) (OR 1,55; 95% CI 1,01–2,39), moderate level of income (compared to high level) (OR 1.97; 95% CI 1,12–3,54). Respondents from Makhachkala were found to have the lowest probability of being adherent to vaccination (OR 4,90; 95% CI 2,29–10,85 compared to the reference city – Almetyevsk).

Conclusion. A low level of parental compliance to child vaccination (79.8%) was found, which is insufficient to prevent epidemics. Low compliance to vaccination was associated with older parental age, lower education level and family income. No connection with the number of children in the family was found.

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