Efficacy most important to parents for STI vaccines.(Obstetrics)

Parents of adolescents appear to accept the idea of vaccinating their teens against sexually transmitted infections, expressing the most concern about the efficacy of the vaccine and the severity of the infection it could prevent, rather than the mode of transmission, Gregory D. Zimet, Ph.D., and his colleagues have reported.

Some surveys have suggested that pediatricians and other adolescent health providers might be reluctant to recommend STI vaccines, perhaps because of concerns about how parents might react.

"The high acceptability ratings reported by most parents in this study suggest that most parents would not react negatively to the suggestion," said Dr. Zimet of Indiana University, Indianapolis (Arch. Pediatr. Adolesc. Med. 2005;159:132-7).

The researchers surveyed 278 parents of adolescents aged 12-17 years. The mean age of parents was 41 years.

The mean age of children was 14 years, and 69% were female.

The survey presented nine different vaccine scenarios, each of which uniquely defined four variables: mode of transmission (STI or non-STI), severity of infection (curable, chronic and incurable, usually fatal); vaccine efficacy (50%, 70%, or 90%); and availability of behavioral methods of prevention (such as condoms or hand washing).

For each scenario, parents were asked, "If this vaccine were available today and you had the time, would you let your child get vaccinated?" Parents rated vaccine acceptability on a scale of 0-100, with 100 being "I would definitely let my child get this vaccine."