Preferences for Influenza Vaccines for Children: Do Children and Parents Agree?

Background: For healthy, US children 2 years of age and older, influenza vaccine is available as an intramuscular injection or an intranasal spray. There is a dearth of publications examining parent and child preferences for vaccine attributes.

Objectives: To explore preferences for and relative importance of pediatric influenza vaccine attributes from the perspective of parents and children.

Methods: A web survey was completed by 544 children aged 8–12 years and 500 parents of children aged 2–12 years using a nationally representative US sample selected from a standing panel. Surveys were developed based on data from parent focus groups and child interviews; questions included influenza vaccine preferences and trade-off choices between two hypothetical vaccine product profiles with attributes reflecting the range present in available vaccines.

Results: Both parents and children rated efficacy as the most important feature relative to safety concerns, mode of administration, and other measured attributes.  For children, mode ranked second in importance, while for parents, preservative content ranked second (preservative content was not included in child’s survey).  When asked to choose between a nose spray or an injection, 69% of children preferred nose spray, while 55% of parents preferred nose spray for their child (49% for parents of children aged 2–4 y vs. 60% for parents of children aged 5–12 y; P<0.01). Results from the trade-off choices (using conjoint analysis) found vaccine efficacy (relative importance=36.0%) and preservative content (relative importance=35.7%) to be the dominant attributes for preference. For children, mode of administration (relative importance=40.5%) was the dominant attribute followed by vaccine efficacy (relative importance=30.6%). 

Conclusions: For parents and children, influenza vaccine efficacy is a commonly shared key driver of preference, while preservative content (for parents) and mode (for children) were also influential when making a choice between available influenza vaccines. Sponsored by MedImmune.