Doubled-Edged Sword: Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19) Vaccine Confidence of Parents In La Trinidad, Benguet

Abstract

Being inoculated is imperative at this point with the continual rise of COVID-19 cases as well as the emergence of new strains. Commencing the ‘Resbakuna’ campaign last March 2021, the health department was able to vaccinate 1.9% of the population with their first dose in the COVID-19 vaccines, while 0.5% was already fully vaccinated as of May 14, 2021. With our current population of 109M, these numbers are still low.

The quick-paced development of the COVID-19 vaccines caused the people to have a hard time believing in it despite its effectiveness. Thus, this paper presents the findings of a multi-barangay survey of the confidence of parents with the COVID-19 vaccine.

Ensuring adherence to the health protocols and ethical considerations, quantitative data were collected from a sample size of 384 respondents divided into 24 pairs per barangay in La Trinidad, Benguet with the use of a questionnaire. Qualitative data were obtained through an interview of 27 participants.

The collective mean of 2.45 indicates the low vaccine confidence of parents in the COVID-19 vaccines, supported by the qualitative themes that show the hesitancy and indecisiveness of parents due to the lack of proper information regarding the COVID-19 vaccines. This was also worsened by the past Dengvaxia vaccine crisis that led to the massive drop of vaccine confidence in the country.

The reinforcement as well as the implementation of a municipal-wide information campaign on vaccines, highlighting essential points and benefits of the COVID-19 vaccines, are highly recommended as the availability of reliant information on the COVID-19 is important in amplifying the confidence and trust of parents to clarify and ease their doubts and concerns on the vaccines.