Determinants of Measles Vaccine Hesitancy among Sudanese Parents in Khartoum State, Sudan: A Cross-Sectional Study

Determinants of vaccine hesitancy are not yet well understood. This study aims to assess measles vaccine hesitancy and characterize its determinants among Sudanese parents in Omdurman in Khartoum State. A community-based cross-sectional quantitative study was conducted in Khartoum State in February 2019. The Parent Attitudes about Childhood Vaccination (PACV) was used to measure measles vaccine hesitancy. Questions about the sociodemographic characteristics of the family, the perception of the parents about the measles vaccine, and the parental exposure to information were asked. Proportions of vaccine hesitancy and coefficients of linear regression were computed. Five hundred parents were recruited for the study. We found that a significant proportion of participants (about 1 in 5 parents) had hesitations regarding the measles vaccine. Significant predictors of measles vaccine hesitancy were parental exposure to anti-vaccination information or materials (beta = -0.478, p-value < 0.001), the parents' perception of the effectiveness of measles vaccines (beta = 0.093, p-value = 0.020), the age of the mother (beta = 0.112, p-value = 0.017), the birth rank of the child (beta = -0.116, p-value = 0.015), and the total number of the children in the family (beta = 0.098, p-value = 0.013). Vaccination access issues were the common justification for parental vaccination hesitancy. Our findings indicate that investment in vaccine communication as well as addressing access issues might be an effective intervention for improving measles vaccine acceptance and, ultimately, measles vaccine coverage.

Automated summary

This study assessed measles vaccine hesitancy and its determinants among Sudanese parents in Omdurman. It found that a significant proportion of parents had hesitations about the measles vaccine and identified factors such as exposure to anti-vaccination information, perception of vaccine effectiveness, mother's age, child's birth rank, and number of children in the family as predictors of hesitancy. Access issues were commonly cited as reasons for parental vaccine hesitancy. The study suggests that investing in vaccine communication and addressing access problems could improve measles vaccine acceptance and coverage.