Willingness of parents to vaccinate their 6–60-month-old children with EV71 vaccines: a cross-sectional study in rural areas of northern Jiangsu Province

ABSTRACT

Enterovirus 71 (EV71) is the dominant pathogen in severe and fatal hand–foot–mouth disease (HFMD) cases. Since 2015, three inactivated EV71 vaccines have been approved in China. The vaccination coverage of the EV71 vaccine has been relatively low, especially in rural areas. A cross-sectional survey from July 19 to August 22, 2018, was conducted in three rural counties of northern Jiangsu Province among parents of children aged 6–60 months. We adopted a pretested validated questionnaire to assess knowledge, awareness, and attitude of HFMD and EV71 vaccines among respondents and used univariate and multivariate binary logistic analyses to explore potential factors associated with the acceptance of EV71 vaccines. Of the 1,112 parents who participated, 87.8% were willing to vaccinate their children with EV71 vaccines. Parents over 40 y old were less likely to have their children vaccinated [adjusted odds ratio (aOR) = 2.12, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.13–3.97]. Parents who lived in Ganyu (aOR = 0.50, 95% CI: 0.31–0.79) or Xinyi county (aOR = 0.33, 95% CI: 0.20–0.53), had a university or higher degree (aOR = 0.26, 95% CI: 0.11–0.64), had good knowledge of EV71 vaccines (aOR = 0.81, 95% CI: 0.67–0.98), perceived their children’s disease susceptibility, and worried about the severity of HFMD had a higher willingness to vaccinate their children. Most parents were willing to vaccinate their children against EV71-related HFMD. Parental age, location, education level, knowledge of EV71 vaccines, concern about susceptibility, and severity of HFMD were all factors that influenced willingness to vaccinate.

KEYWORDS:

• Enterovirus 71 vaccine
• willingness to vaccinate
• influencing factors
• hand–foot–mouth disease

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank all volunteers who participated in this study and also thank the investigators contributed to the site work of the study.

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

No potential conflicts of interest were disclosed.

Authors’ contributions

Jingxin Li, Qi Liang, Fanyue Meng, and Fengcai Zhu contributed to conception and design of the study; Guifan Li and Qi Liang contributed to training staffs; Yuanyuan Wang, Jiaqian Cao, and Qiufan Yu contributed to collecting data; Yuanyuan Wang contributed to analyzing the data; Yuanyuan Wang and Jingxin Li wrote the paper; all authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/21645515.2020.1737465.