Abstract
Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID19), caused by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARSCoV2), is currently a global pandemic with the highest number of people affected in the modern era; only a small proportion of children have been infected with COVID-19. Most of them were asymptomatic or only had mild symptoms. Both direct and indirect advantages will result from an effective and a safe COVID-19 vaccination. Vaccine hesitancy is a potential threat to global public health. Parental attitudes to-wards the vaccines play a key role in the success of the herd immunity for COVID-19. This study aimed to evaluate the parents' willingness and attitudes about the COVID-19 vaccine in Taif city in K.S.A.
Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on a representative sample of 384 parents. The data collection tool was an online questionnaire that consisted of sociodemographic data of parents and children, and questions for assessment of parents' willingness to vaccinate their children with the COVID-19 vaccine. All data were entered and analyzed by using SPSS program version 22. The committee is accredited by the National Committee for Bioethics with No. (HAO-02-T-105) and the proposal fulfills the requirements of Taif Uni-versity and accordingly ethical approval was granted.
Results: The analysis included responses from 579 participants where 54.4% were males, 76.9% belonged to 30-60 years, 72.5% had a university education, 57.9% were working in the non-healthcare sector, and 49.6% had monthly income >10000 SAR. It was reported 92.4% had received two doses of COVID-19 vaccines.
The analysis showed that Pfizer BioNTech was the most commonly taken COVID-19 vaccine for the first dose (70.5%), second dose (75.6%), and third dose (72.7%) [Figure 1]. There were 7 (1.2%) participants who had not yet received a single dose COVID-19 vaccine, and out of them, only two were planning to re-ceive the vaccine in the near future, whereas only two didn't want to receive it.
Conclusion: This study showed poor acceptance of COVID-19 vaccine for children among parents. The choice of wheth-er or not to vaccinate a child should be made by the child's parents. Individual benefits of protection against COVID-19 must be weighed against the population merits of pandemic control in regard to administering vaccines in children and analyzing their efficacy and advantages in terms of minimizing the risk of severe COVID-19.