Parental decision-making for the varicella and measles, mump and rubella vaccines

Childhood vaccinations have gone through major changes in the past several years. With the advent of new vaccines, improvements in more established ones and new combination vaccines available, the decision-making process has become complicated for parents and health care providers. The goal of this research study was to gain a better understanding about how parents make vaccine decisions for their children.; This study tested a model of decision-making for the varicella and measles-mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccines in parents of 2 year olds. The "awareness to action model", which is an adaptation of the health belief model, examined the decisions made by parents before the action (acceptance or non-acceptance) occurs. The role of "ambiguity" and how it related to action taken was explored for the well-established MMR vaccine and the newer, more controversial varicella vaccine. In this research study, the term ambiguity refers to state of uncertainty in decision-making.; A random stratified sample of 262 parents who are members of Kaiser Permanente Hawaii participated in the study. Data collection was through telephone interviews. Reliabilities (Cronbach Alphas) and factor scores were created for the six constructs in the Model. Logistic regression was used to test the relationship between the independent variables of awareness, assessment and decision and the dependent variable, vaccine action.; Ninety-nine percent of the children were vaccinated with MMR and 71% had received the varicella, vaccine. In the "Awareness to Action" model, the "decision" construct was statistically significant (p < 0.05) in predicting vaccine action. In addition, the overall model classified 80% of the participants correctly. The model had a 95% correct classification rate for those parents that vaccinated their children and a 41% correct classification rate for non-vaccinated children.; Parents were more ambiguous about the varicella vaccine compared to the MMR vaccine. Ambiguity played a larger role in acceptance with the varicella vaccine than with the MMR vaccine.; This study provided a model that enables health care providers to understand the vaccine decisions their patients choose. This knowledge can be used for targeting interventions to increase childhood vaccine compliance, thus minimizing the risks of vaccine preventable diseases.