Royal Children’s Hospital survey reveals parents hesitant about flu vaccine

Flu admissions are spiking this year amid a surprising number of parents being hesitant to vaccinate their child, despite the risk of them becoming seriously unwell.

Flu admissions have spiked at Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital, as a new survey reveals about a third of Australian parents are “hesitant” about vaccinating their child.

The survey of almost 2000 parents revealed 36 per cent were not aware that healthy children can get seriously unwell from the flu.

The Royal Children’s Hospital national child health poll found 17 per cent of children would not be vaccinated against the flu this year, while the parents of a further 22 per cent of children were “unsure”.

More than 70 per cent of hesitant parents did not know the vaccine was necessary for children every year.

Kids can get seriously unwell from the flu.

RCH poll director Dr Anthea Rhodes said it was not too late to vaccinate and the hospital has already admitted 135 children with influenza this year, up 27 per cent on the same time last year.

“Healthy kids can get very sick from flu and the vaccine works very well to reduce the chances of them catching it in the first place, but in the event that they perhaps do, also reduce the chances of it being a really serious illness,” she said.

“Parents are unintentionally putting their kids at risk, because they don’t have the right health information.”

The RCH survey, set to be released on Tuesday, also found hesitant parents were twice as likely to say they did not know where to find trustworthy flu vaccine information online, and three times as likely to distrust information from their child’s doctor or nurse.

A staggering 39 per cent of hesitant parents did not trust the doctor or nurses’ information, compared to 13 per cent of parents planning to vaccinate.

Dr Anthea Rhodes said Covid had made more people hesitant about vaccines.

Dr Rhodes said this was an ongoing issue post-pandemic, and we needed to equip “parents and caregivers with ways to critically review and analyse information to help them understand whether this is something that they can trust, whether it’s evidence-based information”.

Half of hesitant parents said their friends and family did not support flu vaccination, compared to just 17 per cent of parents planning to vaccinate.

Other barriers identified included cost — the vaccine is only free for children five and under — inconvenience and time barriers such work and a child’s fear of needles.

One in six kids had a needle phobia so intense their parents reported it prevented them from getting vaccinated.

Originally published as Royal Children’s Hospital survey reveals parents hesitant about flu vaccine