Peer-reviewed article
Parents’ and guardians’ acceptability of COVID-19 vaccination for children in Ghana: An online survey
Frank Kyei‐Arthur, Sylvester Kyei‐Gyamfi, Martin Wiredu Agyekum, Grace Frempong Afrifa-Anane, Bernard Akyeampong Amoh ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study surveyed 415 parents and guardians in Ghana about their willingness to vaccinate their children against COVID-19. About 73% said they would allow vaccination, but acceptance was lower among those with certain educational levels, health beliefs, or concerns about vaccine safety. The research identifies key barriers to vaccination acceptance, including doubts about vaccine safety, beliefs that natural immunity is better, and vaccine hesitancy.
Key points
- 73.3% of parents and guardians reported willingness to accept COVID-19 vaccination for their children
- Parents with Senior High School education were less likely to accept the vaccine for their children
- Belief that COVID-19 cannot be cured was associated with lower vaccine acceptance
- Concerns about vaccine safety and beliefs in natural immunity were significant barriers to acceptance
- Conspiracy theories linking vaccines to 'new world order' were associated with lower acceptance
Limitations
This was an online survey which may not represent all parents in Ghana, particularly those without internet access or digital literacy. The study describes associations between beliefs and vaccine acceptance but cannot establish causation or explain why these beliefs exist.
Abstract
Few studies have examined the intentions of parents and guardians to vaccinate their children younger than 18 years against COVID-19 in Ghana. Parents are the decision makers for children younger than 18 years; therefore, we examined parents' and guardians' intentions to accept the COVID-19 vaccines for their children. An online survey was conducted among 415 parents and guardians in Ghana. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 25 was used to analyse the data. We found that 73.3% of parents/guardians would allow their children to be vaccinated against COVID-19. The binary logistic regression analysis shows that parents/guardians with Senior High School education, those who believed COVID-19 could not be cured, and those who agreed and those who neither agreed nor disagreed with the statement "once the vaccine is available and approved, it would be safe" were less likely to accept COVID-19 vaccine for their children. Also, parents/guardians who neither agreed nor disagreed that "the best way to avoid the complications of COVID-19 is by being vaccinated", those who agreed that "I am of the notion that physiological/natural community is better compared to vaccine-induced immunity" and "I believe the vaccine programming may be likened to the new world order" were less likely to accept COVID-19 vaccine for their children. There is a need for public health practitioners to intensify education on the benefits and side effects of COVID-19 vaccines, as well as provide regular and up-to-date information about vaccines' safety to parents and guardians.
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- Online survey to identify parents' and guardians' intentions and barriers to accepting COVID-19 vaccination for children
- Population
- 415 parents and guardians in Ghana with children younger than 18 years
Key finding
73.3% of respondents reported they would accept COVID-19 vaccination for their children