| This study assessed a broader than a purely medical model for children's physical health. The model consisted of psychosocial and demographic-related variables, as follows: the value of children, the perceived conditions of access to preventive health care services, family support, qualities of health providers, and health of the baby, the type of insurance coverage, the number of children in the family, and the mother's ethnic and cultural identification. The study examined how the proposed variables affected the mother's decision to promptly comply or not with child immunization.; Mothers of Filipino ancestry in Hawaii were recruited for the study between July 1996 and January 1997. They were asked to fill out a questionnaire, which assessed the proposed variables (Appendix A), within a month after childbirth and then four months later, were telephone interviewed about reasons for any delays. While 71 out of 91 returned questionnaires were included in assessing the predictive value of the proposed variables, 81 out of 89 interview data were content analyzed. Multiple regressions were performed to test the predictive value of seven relatively stable variables with timeliness of inoculation at two points in time (one and four months after birth) as the criterion variable.; Although the study yielded an overall prediction of 22% (Adjusted R2 =.14), much improved prediction values were observed when multiple regressions were performed on five pairs of subsamples (e.g., older vs. first generation mothers, and etc.). Except for the subsamples based on the mother's partner's education and for the first generation mothers, the adjusted prediction values, which ranged from.15 to.44 for the subsamples were better than the overall at Time I (See Table 18). At Time 2 the adjusted value was.28 for both the full time employed mothers and the mothers with more educated partners. However, the author acknowledged that overall, due to the possibility of Type I error the findings gathered from the small subsample sizes, provided exploratory and inconclusive evidence, and generated reasonable speculations yet limited interpretive statements. Conceptual and methodological implications of the results of the study are presented. Further research directions and practical suggestions are offered. |
