• Ève Dubé, Anne Farrands, Thomas Lemaitre, Nicole Boulianne, Chantal Sauvageau, François D Boucher, Bruce Tapiero, Caroline Quach, Manale Ouakki, Virginie Gosselin, Dominique Gagnon, Philippe De Wals, Geneviève Petit, Marie-Claude Jacques, and Arnaud Gagneur.
• a Institut national de santé publique du Québec , Québec , Québec , Canada.
• Hum Vaccin Immunother. 2019 Jan 1; 15 (1): 113-120.

BackgroundVaccine hesitancy (VH) is a growing problem. The first step in addressing VH is to have an understanding of who are the hesitant individuals and what are their specific concerns. The aim of this survey was to assess mothers' level of vaccine hesitancy and vaccination knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs.MethodsMothers of newly-born infants in four maternity wards in Quebec (Canada) completed a self-administered questionnaire. The questionnaire included items to assess VH and intention to vaccinate. VH scores were calculated using the Parents Attitudes about Childhood Vaccines (PACV) survey. Multivariate logistic regression was performed to determine variables associated with intention to vaccinate (OR; 95% CI).ResultsOverall, 2645 questionnaires were included in this analysis and 77.5% of respondents certainly intended to vaccinate their infant at 2 months of age. Based on the PACV 100-point scale, 56.4% of mothers had a 0 to ˂30 score (low level of VH); 28.6% had a 30 to ˂50 and 15.0% had a score of 50 and higher (high level of VH).The main determinants of mothers' intention to vaccinate were the perceived importance of vaccinating infants at 2 months of age (OR = 9.2; 5.9-14.5) and a low score of VH (OR = 7.4; 5.3-10.3).DiscussionAlthough the majority of mothers held positive attitudes toward vaccination, a large proportion were moderately or highly vaccine hesitant. Mothers' level of VH was strongly associated with their intention to vaccinate their infants, showing the potential detrimental impact of VH on vaccine uptake rates and the importance of addressing this phenomenon.

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