Journal
JOURNAL OF CHILD NEUROLOGY
Volume 36, Issue 10, Pages 911-918Publisher
SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC
DOI: 10.1177/08830738211000505
Keywords
autism; ASD; developmental delay; vaccines; immunizations; parent perception
Categories
Funding
- NICHD [U54HD083092-02]
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Parents of children with autism spectrum disorder are more likely to be hesitant towards vaccines and believe that toxins in vaccines are the cause of their child's developmental delays. This belief significantly contributes to vaccine hesitancy among these parents, regardless of their children's prior vaccination history.
Parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may be at greater risk for developing antivaccine beliefs that lead to vaccine delays and/or refusals for their children. We investigated current parental vaccine hesitancy, parents' beliefs about causes of children's developmental delays, and children's vaccination histories among parents of children with ASD or non-ASD developmental delays. Data were analyzed from 89/511 parents (17.4%) who completed the Parent Attitudes About Childhood Vaccines questionnaire and the Revised Illness Perception Questionnaire; 46.1% had childhood vaccination records available. Overall, 21/89 (23.6%, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 15.0-34.0) of parents were vaccine hesitant (ASD n = 19/21 [90.5%], non-ASD n = 2/21 [9.5%]). Parents of children with ASD were significantly more likely to agree with toxins in vaccines as a cause of their child's developmental delays (28.4% vs 5.0%, P = .034). The odds of being vaccine hesitant were 11.9 times (95% CI 2.9-48.0) greater among parents who agreed versus disagreed that toxins in vaccines caused their children's developmental delays. Rates of prior vaccine receipt did not differ between hesitant and nonhesitant groups.
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