Parents’ Attitudes toward Childhood Vaccines and COVID-19 Vaccines in a Turkish Pediatric Outpatient Population

Vaccination hesitancy (VH) is an important public health issue. The determinants of parental decisions on whether to vaccinate their children are multidimensional and need to be carefully considered in the COVID-19 era. Our study aims to investigate the prevalence of VH among parents, parents’ use of social media, and their attitudes toward the COVID-19 vaccine upon vaccine refusal. Materials and methods: Our participants were the parents of children admitted to hospitals in three different cities in Turkey between September 2021 and December 2021. The parents were asked to complete sociodemographic data and their attitudes toward COVID-19 diseases, the Parental Attitudes Toward Childhood Vaccines (PACV) scale, and the Attitudes Toward COVID-19 Vaccine (ATV-COVID-19) scale. Participants were categorized as “non-hesitant”, with a score of