THE PREVALENCE OF VACCINE HESITANCY AND SKIPPING MMR VACCINE DUE TO AN AUTISM THOUGHTS IN SAUDI ARABIA

Objective: to assess the prevalence of vaccine hesitancy (VH) and MMR vaccine autism thoughts in Taif province. Methods: A cross-sectional study was done on 208 parents who attended a PHC center in Taif city. A questionnaire was used to collect data about VH in and MMR vaccine autism thoughts.

Results: Of the oarticipants 29.3% had VH in general, 37% were worried about the safety of MMR vaccine, and 39.9% had autism thoughts related to MMR vaccine. VH was significantly higher among female parents, those with high education. Hesitant parents showed a significant higher MMR autism thoughts, and higher thoughts that the risk of MMR vaccine overweight the benefit.

Conclusions: parents had positive and negative aspects related to vaccination. The study calls for health education campaigns implemented through primary health units to correct the false information and concerns about vaccinations, especially the false relationship between the MMR vaccine and autism.

Key words: prevalence, vaccine, hesitancy MMR, autism, Saudi.