The relationship between parents' attitudes towards childhood vaccinations and their access to health i̇nformation in digital environments

Objectives: The research was conducted as a descriptive and correlational study to examine the relationship between parents' attitudes towards childhood vaccinations and their access to health information in digital environments. Methods: The study is descriptive and correlational in nature. The study population consisted of parents of children aged 0-4 living in Türkiye, and the sample consisted of 106 mothers. Data were collected online using a Participant Information Form, the Parental Attitudes About Childhood Vaccines Scale (PACV), and the Digital Health Information Acquisition and Confirmation Behaviors Scale, all developed by the researchers, and a Google Form. Parametric tests were used in data analysis. Results: It was determined that the mean PACV score of the parents was 40.65±20.22 (min-max: 3-93), 65.1% were vaccine hesitant and 34.9% were vaccine hesitant. The mean scores of the sub-dimension of the Digital Environment Health Information Obtaining and Confirmation Behaviors Scale were 2.53±0.96 for web 1.0 and health information acquisition, 1.95±0.73 for web 2.0 and health information acquisition and 3.03±1.05 for digital confirmation. There was no significant relationship between the parents' levels of web 1.0 and health information acquisition and web 2.0 and health information acquisition and the PACV scale (p>0.05). It was found that there was a moderate negative relationship with digital confirmation levels and the PACV total, and a low negative relationship with its sub-dimensions (p<0.05). It was determined that the digital confirmation level made a negative and significant contribution to the regression model (t=-3.38; p<0.01). Conclusion: The study concluded that the majority of parents participating were vaccine hesitant. Their preference for obtaining health information from Web 1.0 and digital environments was moderate, their preference for obtaining health information from Web 2.0 and digital environments was low, their habit of verifying health information obtained from digital environments was moderate to high, and there was a moderately negative and significant correlation between vaccine attitudes and confirmation levels. Parents who were less hesitant about childhood vaccines had a higher habit of verifying health information obtained from digital environments than parents who were hesitant. It is recommended that inaccurate information about vaccines be restricted in digital environments to prevent negatively impacting parents' vaccine attitudes. November 2025, 94 pages. Keywords: vaccination, childhood, parental attitude, digital environment, obtaining health information