Parents’ attitudes towards varicella vaccination acceptance in France and Germany: effect of vaccine recommendation and reimbursement (a survey)

To ascertain physicians’ and parents’ attitudes towards varicella vaccination acceptance and to compare them between Germany (G), where routine varicella vaccination is recommended in children, and France (F), where it is not.

Study design: cross-sectional pharmacoepidemiological study conducted in pediatric practice. Data included descriptions of the vaccinated children by pediatricians and descriptions of the parents’ attitudes using a self-administered questionnaire. The next five successive children, under 15 years old, vaccinated against varicella were included in the study.

Six hundred ninety-five pediatricians (F: 186; G: 509) and 2,593 parents (F: 664; G: 1,929) were included in the study. Initially, 7.1% of the German parents and 15.3% of the French parents were reluctant to have their children inoculated with the varicella vaccine (p < 0.0001). The main reason for their reluctance was the ‘fear of complications due to the vaccination’ in both countries (G: 60.0% vs 55.5%; p: ns). Fewer German parents thought that the varicella vaccine was too recent (5.9% vs 45.5%; p < 0.0001), and they were also less reluctant due to the cost of the vaccination (G: 11.9% vs F:22.8%; p < 0.02). In both countries, the most convincing arguments for parents who were initially reluctant were ‘information on the potential seriousness of the disease,’ which was reported by three-quarters of the parents (G: 70.0% vs F: 74.3%; p: ns), and ‘availability of an effective, well-tolerated vaccine’ (G: 59.4% vs F: 64.0%; p: ns).

Even in the absence of an official recommendation, French parents will accept varicella vaccine to the same extent as German parents where it is advisable if they receive appropriate information about the potential severity of the disease and the efficacy and safety of the vaccine.