Factors related to parents’ decision not to vaccinate their children

Introduction Although vaccination has proven to be one of the most effective public health interventions for disease prevention, a small section of the population presents the so-called ‘vaccine hesitancy’ or vaccination doubts. It would be interesting to know the possible factors related to rejection of vaccination. Material and methods Study of cases and controls in which data have been collected from children registered in the REVA programme in the province of Valladolid with explicit rejection of parents (cases), paired with children of the same age, sex and basic health area that do have been vaccinated (controls). Telephone interview was conducted to obtain sociodemographic factors and opinion on vaccination. Results and discussion A total of 82 children were selected, of whom 30 parents agreed to take to the survey. 55% of them mention the doctor as the main source of vaccination information, which contrasts with the distrust of the detected system. Statistically significant differences in the perception of vaccination side effects between cases and controls and in the different items were observed. Statistically significant association was observed between the use of homeopathy the risk of being a case (OR = 5.75, 95% CI = 1.9 to 17.34). Conclusions Although the number of children not vaccinated by explicit rejection by their parents in Valladolid is very low, it is important to know the reasons for this decision and to make an approach guided by the approach of postures rather than the judgment of values towards these families.