Evaluation of the Attitudes of Vaccination-hesitant Parents Towards Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Abstract

Introduction: Although the vaccine has many individual and social benefits, ‘Vaccine Hesitancy’ has led to an increase in the number of vaccine-preventable diseases. The aim of our study is to determine the effect of ideas that cause vaccine hesitancy to comply with traditional medicine practices and drugs and to determine the ratio of parents’ preference for complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) methods. Materials and Methods: This study was performed on the parents who refused vaccination in their children under the age of 8 between the years 2017-2022. Parents of the vaccinated children who were matched for age and gender were determined as the control group. Demographic characteristics of families, education levels, compliance ratios for well-child follow-up and pregnancy follow-up, preference ratios for traditional medicine and/or CAM applications were compared. Results: A total of 123 families, 61 of whom were vaccine refusal and 62 of the control group, were included in the study. It was determined that the ratio of parents who refuse vaccination have increased in the last five years. The education level was found to be higher in the study group (p=0.019). The most common reasons for vaccine refusal were distrust of the vaccine content (72.1%) and non-compliance with religious beliefs (49.1%). It was also found that the ratios of prophylactic vitamin use and tetanus vaccination of mothers during pregnancy were lower in the study group (p<0.01). While the rate of compliance with vitamin D and iron prophylaxis for infants was lower in the vaccine refusal group (p<0.01), the ratio of preference for CAM was higher (p<0.01). Conclusion: Vaccine hesitancy is a complex issue that affects public health, in which many individual, religious, political and sociological factors play a role. As with recent studies, this research shows that the most important reason for vaccine rejection is “lack of trust”. The higher education level in the vaccine refusal group may also be a sign of this distrust. Not only the rejection of the vaccine, but also the lack of use of vitamin drugs seems to be related to lack of trust. This may also cause CAM methods to be preferred more. These results show that providing trust in vaccination is the biggest step in the fight against vaccine hesitancy.

Keywords

• vaccine hesitancy
• vaccine refusal
• trust
• complementary and alternative medicine