Clinicians Are Not Able to Infer Parental Intentions to Vaccinate Infants with a Seasonal Influenza Vaccine, and Perhaps They Should Not Try: Findings from the Pediatric Influenza Vaccination Optimization Trial (PIVOT)-IV

William A Fisher; Vladimir Gilca; Michelle Murti; Alison Orth; Hartley Garfield; Paul Roumeliotis; Emmanouil Rampakakis; Vivien Brown; John Yaremko; Paul Van Buynder; Constantina Boikos; James A Mansi

doi:10.3390/vaccines10111955

Clinicians Are Not Able to Infer Parental Intentions to Vaccinate Infants with a Seasonal Influenza Vaccine, and Perhaps They Should Not Try: Findings from the Pediatric Influenza Vaccination Optimization Trial (PIVOT)-IV

Vaccines (Basel). 2022 Nov 18;10(11):1955. doi: 10.3390/vaccines10111955.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Western University, London, ON N6A 3K7, Canada.
² Département de Médecine Sociale et Préventive, Faculté de Médecine, Institut Nationale de Sante Publique du Québec and Université Laval, Québec City, QC G1V 5B3, Canada.
³ Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5T 3M7, Canada.
⁴ Fraser Health Authority, Vancouver, BC V3T 0H1, Canada.
⁵ The Hospital for Sick Children, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5G 1X8, Canada.
⁶ Eastern Ontario Health Unit, Cornwall, ON K6J 5T1, Canada.
⁷ JSS Medical Research, Montreal, QC H4S 1N8, Canada.
⁸ Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5G 1V7, Canada.
⁹ The Montreal Children's Hospital, Montreal, QC H4A 3J1, Canada.
¹⁰ Department of Pediatrics, McGill University, Montreal, QC H3A 0G4, Canada.
¹¹ School of Medicine, Griffith University, University of Western Australia, Perth, WA 6009, Australia.
¹² Seqirus, Montreal, QC H9H 4M7, Canada.

Abstract

This prospective cohort survey evaluated the concordance of clinicians’ perceptions of parental intentions and parents’ actual intentions to vaccinate their infants against influenza. During a routine healthy baby visit, clinicians provided parents with information about influenza, children’s vulnerability to influenza, and nonadjuvanted and adjuvanted trivalent influenza vaccines (TIV and aTIV, respectively). Before and after the clinician−parent interaction, parents were surveyed about their attitudes, their perceptions of support from significant others, and the intention to vaccinate their infant with aTIV. Clinicians were asked about their perception of parents’ intentions to choose aTIV for their children. These assessments included 24 clinicians at 15 community practices and nine public health clinics, and 207 parents. The correlation coefficients of the clinicians’ assessment of parents’ intention to vaccinate were 0.483 (p < 0.001) if the vaccine was presented as free of cost, 0.266 (p < 0.001) if the cost was $25, and 0.146 (p = 0.036) if the cost was $50, accounting for 23%, 7%, and 2% of the variance in parental intentions, respectively. The clinicians were poor at predicting parental intentions to immunize, particularly when cost was involved. Information on vaccine options and influenza infection should be provided for every eligible patient to allow parents to determine if the vaccine is appropriate for their child.

Keywords: childhood vaccination; education; influenza; parental acceptance; vaccine hesitancy.

Grants and funding

This study was funded by Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, Inc. and Seqirus Inc. Of note, Novartis’ influenza vaccine business was acquired by the CSL-group on 31 July 2015, and currently operates as Seqirus, Inc. The sponsor had primary responsibility for study design and study vaccines, protocol development, study monitoring, data management, and statistical analyses.