Pediatricians’ perceptions, practices, and barriers regarding COVID-19 vaccine for children: A cross-sectional survey in Ontario, Canada
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: SARS-CoV-2 vaccination of all age-eligible populations is an important part of the COVID-19 pandemic response. In Ontario, vaccination coverage in 5-to-11-year-old children has remained lower than in other age groups. We sought to understand pediatricians' perception, practices, and barriers to SARS-CoV-2 vaccination in children, particularly children aged 5-to-11 years, to inform interventions and promote capacity of pediatricians as vaccinators and vaccination promoters. METHODS: This is a descriptive, cross-sectional study consisting of an online self-administered questionnaire distributed to 1,313 pediatricians in Ontario. Descriptive statistics, including Chi-square or Fisher's exact tests, were performed. RESULTS: In total, 152 Pediatricians responded (11.6% response rate), from February 17, 2022 to March 17, 2022. 78% of respondents were general pediatricians and 22% were pediatric subspecialists. Median years of practice was 17 (8-31), with 68% female, 32% male. Most pediatricians thought it was unlikely that children aged 5-to-11 years would become seriously ill from acute COVID-19 caused by Delta (66%) or Omicron (80%). 92% were very likely to recommend the COVID-19 vaccine for children aged 5-to-11 years. COVID-19 vaccine was perceived as safe, with higher safety perception in children aged 5-to-11 compared to 12-to-17 years (p < 0.0001). COVID-19 vaccines were thought to be effective in reducing hospitalization or severe illness, and reducing SARS-CoV-2 infection, with higher perceived effectiveness against Delta compared to Omicron (p < 0.0001). 97% felt confident counselling caregivers of children aged 5-to-11 years on the COVID-19 vaccine. Few pediatricians did not feel confident in accessing resources for health professionals (6%) or for patients/caregivers (12%). CONCLUSIONS: Most surveyed pediatricians were very likely to recommend COVID-19 vaccination for children aged 5-to-11-years, perceived COVID-19 vaccines as safe and effective, and felt confident in their COVID-19 vaccine counselling for children aged 5-to-11 years. However, there remains areas for further training and capacity development.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".