Parents' Intentions to Vaccinate Their Children Against COVID-19.

INTRODUCTION: With the COVID-19 vaccine rollout is well underway now beginning in children ages 12 and over, it is unknown what percent of parents plan to vaccinate their children against COVID-19. METHOD: The purpose of this descriptive correlational study was to examine parents' attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors in administering a COVID-19 vaccine. RESULTS: Only 21.93% of the subjects reported overall VH. Half of parents (49.45%) say they want the COVID vaccine for their child, and 44.17% plan to vaccinate against COVID once the vaccine becomes available to them. Concern for vaccine side effects (61.5%) and vaccine safety (48.96%) were significant factors that increased VH. In addition, there was a significant correlation between parents who were planning to vaccinate their child against the flu and being less VH about a COVID-19 vaccine for their child. DISCUSSION: This is the first known study to describe parental perceptions' of COVID-19 VH and identify factors that increase VH for parents.

Parental perceptions of disease-severity and health-related quality of life in school-age children with congenital heart disease.

PURPOSE: Understanding parents' perceptions of their child's health status is important as parents are drivers of healthcare utilization in the pediatric setting. Understanding parent-perceived disease-severity and its effects on a child's health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in children with congenital heart disease (CHD) is necessary to evaluate outcomes of care, improve care coordination, and inform policies focused on advancing family-centered care for pediatric cardiac patients. The impact of CHDs and disease-severity on the child's HRQOL has been investigated with inconsistent results. The overall aim of this study was to examine parents' perceptions of HRQOL in their school-age child with CHD, and to compare HRQOL among patients with CHD across severity categories. DESIGN: This was a descriptive correlational study design. METHODS: A total of 71 parents of school-age children aged 5-12 years completed the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory 4.0 Generic Core Scale (PedsQL) (including total, physical health, and psychosocial health summary scores) and cardiac-specific HRQOL Scale (PedsQL 3.0). PedsQL scores among CHD severity categories were compared by analysis of variance. RESULTS: School-age children with CHDs had an overall good HRQOL with significant differences among disease severity categories for all scores. Parents reported lower scores on their HRQOL of older children compared to younger children across severity groups (p < .01) and for those children with more severe disease (p < .01). PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: Based on the results of this study, interventions should focus on targeting psychosocial health in older children with CHD and physical health in younger children with CHD. This information is useful in providing practical recommendations in caring for children with CHDs while informing relevant policies.