Individual Psychological Characteristics As One of the Prerequisites for Vaccine Nihilism

This article presents the results of the second (searching) stage of the study, designed to confirm the hypothesis that there is an association between individual psychological characteristics and vaccination nihilism, or negative attitude to vaccination, which affects the level of immunization in the population. This longitudinal screening psychological study included parents of children seen by doctors of the outpatient department of I.I. Mechnikov Research Institute of Vaccines and Serums in Moscow. The set of tests included self-report depression scale (SRDS), state-trait anxiety inventory (STAI), test for the assessment of neuroticism and psychoticism levels (NPL), and shortened multifactor personality questionnaire (MPQ). Test sets (hereinafter referred to as questionnaires) were sent by e-mail to 150 respondents, primarily married couples; 43 (28.7%) questionnaires were returned blank. Among the remaining 107 (71.3%), only 35 questionnaires (23.3%) were completed and correctly filled in; they were included in the study. Of note, most of these completed questionnaires were filled in by women, which once again indicates their leading role in decisions related to vaccination of children. Data analysis was performed using the SPSS 23 software; we calculated the Pearson correlation coefficient. Differences were considered significant at р < 0.05. The age of the respondents ranged from 25 to 45 years; 34 of them (97.1%) had completed higher education. In 14 families (40%), there was one child; in 15 families (45.7%), there were two children; in 5 families (14.3%), there were three and more children. Children’s age varied between 1 month and 15 years. Twenty-two women (62.9%) had negative attitude to vaccination. Mean values (M ± m) of SRDS scores were comparable to the standard ones; four respondents (11.4%) demonstrated scores higher than normal (above 49). Mean STAI scores for personal anxiety were also close to normal; elevated personal anxiety was observed in 13 respondents (37.1%). Mean level of situational anxiety was lower; only 7 women (20%) had increased situational anxiety; however, the changes were more pronounced than in case of personal anxiety. Mean NPL scores for psychoticism were slightly above the normal values; nineteen participants (54.3%) had elevated NPL scores for psychoticism. Mean neuroticism scores were much closer to the lower limits; only 1 woman had elevated neuroticism score. MPQs demonstrated very similar values for all scales, while mean indices for all basic scales were uniformly low. The correlation analysis revealed a significant association between personal and situational anxiety (STAI) and depression (SRDS) (r = 0.619; r = 0.663 and r = 0.611, respectively, at p ≤ 0.01). Thus, the study demonstrated, on the one hand, a number of minimally or moderately pronounced individual psychological characteristics (such as a tendency to develop mild and subclinical depression, elevated anxiety (particularly personal anxiety), and increased psychoticism) and, on the other hand, obvious negative attitude to vaccination. Individual personality traits can modulate person's response to psychosocial factors of the external (new information) environment and can facilitate the formation of false beliefs and biases regarding vaccination. Keywords: vaccination, children, false beliefs, negative attitude, adolescents, psychological characteristics, psychosocial factors