The impact of the emotions that frame mothers’ decision-making about the vaccination of toddlers

Abstract

Introduction: Anti-vaccination campaigns have been broadened with a strong negative impact on the parental refusal of vaccination despite of the fact that fatal diseases had been greatly reduced thanks to mandatory vaccination programmes valid in Slovakia. Methods: We used the questionnaire implemented by the Slovak public health institution to collect meaningful data, analysing the attitudes of 875 mothers of two-years old kids towards vaccination and the impacts of their emotional beliefs on decision-making. Results: The results showed the correlation between attitudes to vaccination and variables such as age (p = 0.136), parenting (p = 0.037), regional district (p = 0.326), emotional backgrounds (p = 0.043) and life experiences (p = 0.015). The emotions have a significant impact on decision-making about vaccination in the first step and on the rational conclusion to get a child vaccinated (p = 0.025). Discussion: In the sample of 875 women, the refusal of vaccination was found to reflect multiple factors, including family background, perceptions about healthy lifestyle and aspects of the natural immune system of children, awareness of risks of the diseases; perceived disadvantages of vaccines; its adverse effects compared to the efficacy, and negative experience with vaccination in the family or social environment in relation to the emotional effects. Conclusions: Most of the parents call for non-mandatory vaccination and they are convinced that vaccination should be at everyone’s free choice. On the other hand it can bring great chaos to the vaccination system, break preventive strategies and collective immunity, and may spread many old and new serious diseases into the population.