Parents' attitudes toward childhood COVID-19 immunization in Croatia: a multicenter cross-sectional study

Aim To assess parents' attitudes toward childhood COVID-19 immunization in Croatia. Methods In this multicenter cross-sectional study, we col-lected data from four tertiary care facilities in Zagreb, Split, and Osijek between December 2021 and February 2022. During the visit to the Pediatric Emergency Departments, parents were asked to fill out a highly-structured question-naire about their attitudes toward COVID-19 immunization in children. Results The sample consisted of 872 respondents. A total of 46.3% of respondents were hesitant about vaccinating their child against COVID-19, 35.2% definitely did not in-tend to vaccinate their child, and 18.5% definitely intended to vaccinate their child. Parents who were themselves vac-cinated against COVID-19 were more likely than unvacci-nated parents (29.2% and 3.2%, P < 0.001) to vaccinate their children. Parents agreeing with the epidemiological guide-lines were more inclined to vaccinate their children, as were parents of older children and parents of children vac-cinated according to the national program schedule. Child comorbidities and respondents' history of COVID-19 were not associated with childhood vaccination intention. Or-dinal logistic regression revealed that the most important predictors for a positive parents' attitude toward vaccinat-ing their child were parents' vaccination status and regular vaccination of their child according to the national immu-nization program schedule. Conclusion Our results demonstrate Croatian parents ' mostly hesitant and negative attitudes toward childhood COVID-19 immunization. Future vaccination campaigns should target unvaccinated parents, parents with younger children, and parents of children with chronic diseases.