Parental attitudes about vaccination collected at several primary schools in Primorje-Gorski Kotar County

Introduction: After several years of work in school medicine, we have realized that vaccination is becoming increasingly questionable,unclear and confusing for many parents. In conversation with parents, we noticed that they had insuffi cient knowledge aboutvaccination, that they often looked for information in unreliable sources, and were confused by the increasingly powerful andaggressive anti-vaccination movements.Objective: The aim of this study was to determine parents’ knowledge and attitudes about vaccination and to evaluate where theywere seeing health professionals, how clear we were and how much they trusted us.Materials and methods: The survey involved 109 parents. They were parents of children from three primary schools (fi rst and eighthgrades) from Rijeka, Sveti Matej, Hreljin and Podmurvice. A questionnaire was prepared with questions related to the knowledge andattitudes about vaccination and recognition of health service.Results: Concerning previous vaccinations, 92% of respondents stated that they knew what vaccination their baby had received. Halfof the parents (52%) did not worry about any vaccination procedures, but nearly half of the parents (41%) said they were worriedabout the vaccine side eff ects. If vaccination was not mandatory, 86% of the parents would still have their children vaccinated, 9%would consult a physician, and 5% would not have their children vaccinated.Conclusion: The study confi rmed the experiential knowledge that most parents had positive attitude towards vaccination and werewilling to have their children vaccinated. The majority of responses revealed that parents felt confused and needed additional counselling.The duty of the physician, with support of the public health service, is to improve communication, so that it can providequality information about vaccination.

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