Parental attitudes toward the vaccination of children diagnosed with congenital heart disease: a cross-sectional comparative study

The presence of chronic disease in children is an important factor affecting vaccination status. The aim of this study was to evaluate the attitudes toward childhood vaccinations of parents of children diagnosed with congenital heart disease (CHD) on presentation at the Pediatric Cardiology Outpatient Clinic of Dicle University Hospital and the vaccination status of the children through comparisons with the parents of healthy children. This cross-sectional comparative study included a case group of parents of children who were diagnosed with CHD who presented at the Pediatric Cardiology Outpatient Clinic of Dicle University Hospital between 01.06.2022 and 01.06.2023. The control group consisted of parents of children who had not been diagnosed with CHD. The Parent Attitudes about Childhood Vaccines (PACV) scale and a questionnaire regarding the participants’ sociodemographic characteristics and the vaccination status of the children were used to collect data. A total of 731 parents were evaluated, 274 in the case group and 457 in the control group. No significant difference between the groups with respect to the rates of application of the vaccinations included in the Turkish National Vaccination Schedule (NVS) was detected ( p > 0.05 for all the variables). The rates of rotavirus and meningococcus vaccinations were determined to be significantly greater in the control group ( p < 0.001, p < 0.001). In the comparisons between the case and control groups, vaccine hesitancy was significantly greater in the control group ( p = 0.006). The total raw PACV score, the converted PACV score, and the general attitude subdomain score were significantly greater in the control group ( p < 0.001, p < 0.001, p = 0.019, respectively). In the case group, the rate of vaccine hesitancy among the parents of children with cyanotic heart disease was greater ( p = 0.038). The results of this study revealed that the rate of vaccine hesitancy was lower for parents of children diagnosed with CHD than for parents of healthy children. However, cyanotic heart disease was associated with a significantly higher rate of vaccine hesitancy. Vaccine hesitancy was also associated with several sociodemographic characteristics, vaccine-related knowledge and economic factors.