1647. Investigating Parents’ Vaccine Hesitancy in the United Arab Emirates: A Cross-Sectional Survey

BACKGROUND: Vaccine hesitancy has been declared by the World Health Organization as a top threat to public health in 2019. It has been studied extensively in the Western world but not so among Arabs. The Parent Attitudes about Childhood Vaccines (PACV) survey is a validated instrument for identifying vaccine-hesitant parents; however, Arabic version is not available. This study aimed to assess the reliability of the PACV survey in Arabic language and to determine the prevalence of vaccine hesitancy among parents in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). METHODS: Forward and backward translation of the PACV in Arabic language was carried out. The reliability of the Arabic-PACV survey was tested among parents with children. The same survey was used to study vaccine hesitancy among parents attending seven primary healthcare centers in Al-Ain city, UAE. Univariate analyses were performed to determine the associations between vaccine hesitancy and socio-demographic characteristics. RESULTS: The Cronbach’s alpha (a measure of internal consistency reliability) for total Arabic-PACV scores was 0.79. Two hundred and sixty-two participants answered the PACV survey (response rate, 74.9%). The majority were mothers (75.9%) in the age group (18–39 years) and more than half (56.3%) had attended university or higher education. Only 29 parents (11.11%, 95% CI = 7.85–15.5) were found to be vaccine-hesitant (score ≥ 50). Socio-demographic characteristics such as education level, number of children and household income did not have any significant association with vaccine hesitancy. However, when using the question “Have you ever decided not to have your child get a shot for reasons other than illness or allergy?” as a surrogate item for vaccine hesitancy, the variable education was significantly associated to this question. More specifically, participants with lower education (n = 110) were more likely to be vaccine-hesitant compared with those with higher education (n = 147), (OR = 4.50, P = 0.026, 95% CI = 1.3–20.7). CONCLUSION: The Arabic-PACV survey could serve as a tool in the evaluation of vaccine hesitancy among parents in UAE and other Arabic-speaking countries. The prevalence of vaccine hesitancy among parents in our community is comparable with other populations. DISCLOSURES: All authors: No reported disclosures.