ISSN: 2222-6990
Open access
This study investigated perceptions of children’s risk of vaccine-preventable diseases among parents who refused vaccination for their children under two years of age at public health care clinics in Selangor. A purposive sampling strategy was employed to engage 27 parents willing to be interviewed. A semi-structured interview found that parents perceived unvaccinated children as having a lower risk of getting infections and equal vulnerability to vaccinated children. Besides, some parents perceived that there were other influencing factors contributing to children contracting a disease rather than not receiving the recommended vaccinations. Parents also perceived that their children have better health status compared to vaccinated children. Interestingly, a few claimed that their children had good traits, such as always respecting and obeying their orders and having higher intellectual thinking. Regular vaccination discussion, reviews of children's vaccination status, and formulation of recommendations should enhance parents’ understanding of vaccination and evade any misperception.
Abd Manaf, N.H., Omar, M.A. and Suib, F.H. (2022). "Vaccine hesitancy and implications on childhood immunisation in Malaysia", International Journal of Health Governance, Vol. 27 No. 1, pp. 76-86. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJHG-05-2021-0055.
Ahmad, N. A., Jahis, R., Lim, K. K., Jamaluddin, R., & Aris, T. (2017). Primary immunisation among children in Malaysia: Reasons for incomplete vaccination. Journal of Vaccines and Vaccination, 8, 358. https://doi:10.4172/2157-7560.1000358.
Ansari, M. T., Jamaluddin, N. N., Ramlan, T. A., Zamri, N., Majeed, S., Badgujar, V., ... & Balbir Singh, H. K. (2021). Knowledge, attitude, perception of Muslim parents towards vaccination in Malaysia. Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics, 17(3), 785-790. https://doi.org/10.1080/21645515.2020.1800325.
Blaisdell, L. L., Gutheil, C., Hootsmans, N. A., & Han, P. K. (2016). Unknown risks: parental hesitation about vaccination. Medical Decision Making, 36(4), 479-489.
Burghouts J, Del Nogal B, Uriepero A, Hermans PWM, de Waard JH, Verhagen LM. Childhood vaccine acceptance and refusal among warao amerindian caregivers in Venezuela; A qualitative approach. PLoS One 2017 Jan 20;12(1):e0170227.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0170227.
Creswell, J. W. (2003). Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative and Mixed Methods Approaches. (2nd Ed.). London: Sage Publications.
Facciolà, A., Visalli, G., Orlando, A., Bertuccio, M. P., Spataro, P., Squeri, R., ... & Pietro, A. D. (2019). Vaccine hesitancy: An overview on parents' opinions about vaccination and possible reasons of vaccine refusal. Journal of public health research, 8(1), jphr-2019. https://doi.org/ 10.4081/jphr.2019.1436.
Gowda, C., & Dempsey, A. F. (2013). The rise (and fall?) of parental vaccine hesitancy. Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics, 9(8), 1755-1762. https://doi.org/10.4161/hv.25085.
Hagan, D., & Phetlhu, D. R. (2016). Determinants of parents’ decisions on childhood immunisations at Kumasi Metropolis in Ghana. curationis, 39(1), 1-7. https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC195859.
Harmsen, I. A., Mollema, L., Ruiter, R. A. C., Paulussen, T. G. W., De Melker, H. E., & Kok, G. (2013). Why parents refuse childhood vaccination: A qualitative study using online focus groups. BMC Public Health, 13(1), 1183. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-13-1183.
Holt, E. (2018). 41,000 measles cases in Europe since the beginning of 2018. The Lancet, 392(10149), 724.
Institute for Public Health (IPH) 2023. National Health and Morbidity Survey (NHMS) 2022: Maternal and Child Health – Key Findings.
Kata, A. (2012). Anti-vaccine activists, Web 2.0, and the postmodern paradigm–An overview of tactics and tropes used online by the anti-vaccination movement. Vaccine, 30(25),3778-3789. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2011.11.112.
Karimah, A., & Abdullah, H. (2017). Healthcare professionals and health beliefs and attitudes influenced vaccine hesitancy among parents living in Kuantan, Pahang. The Medical Journal of Malaysia, 72(1), 64.
Kempe, A., Saville, A. W., Albertin, C., Zimet, G., Breck, A., Helmkamp, L., ... & Szilagyi, P. G. (2020). Parental hesitancy about routine childhood and influenza vaccinations: a national survey. Pediatrics, 146(1). https://doi.org/ 10.1542/peds.2019-3852.
Lim, W. Y., Amar-Singh, H. S. S., Jeganathan, N., Rahmat, H., Mustafa, N. A., Mohd Yusof, F.-S., Rahman, R., Itam, S., Chan, C. H., & N-Julia, M. S. (2016). Exploring immunisation refusal by parents in the Malaysian context. Cogent Medicine, 3(1), 1142410. https://doi.org/10.1080/2331205x.2016.1142410.
Lundgren, B. (2015). ‘Rhyme or reason?’Saying no to mass vaccination: subjective re-interpretation in the context of the A (H1N1) influenza pandemic in Sweden 2009–2010. Medical humanities, 41(2), 107-112. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2015-010684.
Luthy, K. E., Beckstrand, R. L., Callister, L. C., & Cahoon, S. (2012). Reasons parents exempt children from receiving immunisations. The journal of school nursing, 28(2), 153-160. https://doi. org/10.1177/1059840511426578.
Mendel-Van Alstyne, J. A., Nowak, G. J., & Aikin, A. L. (2018). What is ‘confidence’and what could affect it?: A qualitative study of mothers who are hesitant about vaccines. Vaccine, 36(44), 6464-6472.
Ruijs, W. L., Hautvast, J. L., van IJzendoorn, G., van Ansem, W. J., van der Velden, K., & Hulscher, M. E. (2012). How orthodox protestant parents decide on the vaccination of their children: a qualitative study. BMC Public Health, 12(1), 408.
https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-12-408.
Saeed, R., Hashmi, I., & Hashmi, S. M. I. (2021). Pakistan ranks third globally with the most unvaccinated children: is the impact of parental perception and attitude on immunisation an essential contributing factor to an unsuccessful vaccination coverage? Cureus, 13(11). https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.19751.
Report Of The Sage Working Group On Vaccine Hesitancy [Internet]. 2014 [Cited 14 August 2018]. Available from: https://www.asset-scienceinsociety.eu/sites/default/files/ sage_working_group_revised_report_vaccine_ hesitancy.pdf
Zin, Z. M., Krishnan, M., Ilman, S. S. S., Jaafar, N., Zulkepli, M. Z., Kadir, K. A., & Ahmad, N. (2022). Exploring parental refusal of vaccine in Selangor.
(Zin et al., 2023)
Zin, Z. M., Rahman, A. B., Dahaban, M. U. M., Jahaya, N. H., & Ilman, S. S. S. (2023). The Risk Of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases To Children: What The Parents Perceive. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 13(12), 2852-2861.
Copyright: © 2023 The Author(s)
Published by HRMARS (www.hrmars.com)
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode