Bulletin of Medical and Biological Research

Summary. Restrictive rules during the COVID-19 pandemic and the desire to minimize children’s contact have reduced the coverage of routine vaccinations in all age groups. Interruptions in routine immunization can lead to outbreaks of vaccine-control infectious diseases, which will be an additional burden on the public health care system overloaded by the COVID-19 pandemic. In this situation, the role of medical staff as a source of objective information with the involvement of all motivational potential is exacerbated. The aim of the study – to analyze the parents’ adherence to immunization with the definition of the role and place of various information sources of immunoprophylaxis, including health care professionals. Materials and Methods. To achieve this goal, we conducted an anonymous survey of 87 parents whose children were hospitalized at the Chernivtsi Regional Children's Clinical Hospital or sought outpatient care at the Chernivtsi City Children's Polyclinic using a developed questionnaire containing 14 questions with answer options. Results. The bigger part of parents (82 %) expressed a positive attitude to vaccination during the survey, the part of parents who have an ambiguous attitude to vaccination, so far refuse and those who have a negative attitude to some vaccines, reaches 16 %. The study also shows a certain imbalance between the personal vaccination history of parents and the history of vaccination of their own children. According to the parents’ view (79 %), the most important sources of information on immunization should be health workers, while the survey shows that the part of parents who receive the necessary information about the benefits of vaccination in medical institutions were 14 % lower and amounted to 65 %. Conclusions. The paper shows positive parents’ adherence to vaccination and a high level of their trust in health care professionals as a source of relevant information. Health care professionals do not make full use of their own "vaccination potential" and in some cases are sources of negative information about vaccination. There is an urgent necessity in educational work of health care professionals to increase the population's adherence to immunization, especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic

children, immunoprophylaxis, vaccination schedule, COVID-19 pandemic, nurse