Attitudes of mothers towards vaccines for their children with 1-5 years
Introduction
In health care, it is approved that the prevention of a disease is better than its cure. As such, immunization is the primary health care intervention used to prevent infants and children against disability, illness, and death caused by vaccine-preventable diseases (Ramadan, Soliman, & Abd El-kader, 2016; Awadh, et al., 2014; Ahmed, Abd-El Rahman, & Masoed, 2013). However, Awadh, et al., (2014) argue that parents are the major decision makers for the immunization of their children. Benin (2006) add that the mothers’ attitudes towards the vaccination of their children depend on the promoters or the inhibitors of this practice. Promoters according to these authors include the urge of preventing a disease, altruism, and bandwagon while the inhibitors include the fear of impairing the kid and the belief of developing immunity against a disease rather than using a vaccination (Benin, 2006). The existence of these two factors inhibitors and promoters influence the maternal attitude towards vaccine in different ways. Nevertheless, there are different and unclear definitions of maternal attitudes influenced by different cultural beliefs. These distinctive definitions have influenced the perception and counteractive measures taken by nurses. Maternal attitude is an increasingly used term in the health care, yet it is hardly defined. Hence, a more comprehensive and constructive definition of this term is needed, which is substantial for the future research. Therefore, the aim of this essay is to elucidate the concept of maternal attitude in developing a research study of mother’s attitudes towards vaccine of their children. The analysis will also be significant for the nurse researchers who consider investigating the maternal attitude concept in other areas.
Background
According to Ahmed, Abd-El Rahman, and Masoed (2013), vaccines is one of the greatest achievement of the modern medicine, which has made immunization a high priority part of the care of children. The effective utilization of immunization has led to the reduction of the infectious illness, death, and disability that results from vaccine-preventable diseases such as Diphtheria, Measles, Polio, and Pertussis (Ramadan, Soliman, & Abd El-kader, 2016; Naik, et al., 2016). Besides, vaccination substantially reduces the cost of treating diseases as well as providing a healthy childhood, which is key to the reduction of suffering and poverty. Ansong, et al., (2014) proclaim that vaccination has been proven as a cost efficient practice for controlling the communicable diseases. The effective utilization of the vaccines has led to the outstanding results to the childhood health. For instance, the World Health Organization (WHO) projected that by 2015, the global vaccine coverage would rise to 90%, which would prevent approximate two million children from dying (Vonasek, et al., 2016). Such results are received upon the prevention of the deaths associated with the vaccine-preventable diseases.
Therefore, it is important to improve the vaccination rate of the infants and children by providing a clear understanding of the definition of maternal attitudes to the nurses who administer the vaccines. By clarifying this definition, the nurses will understand the antecedents and consequences of the maternal attitudes. Maternal attitude is acquired through experiences after an individual has gained information and life experiences that are influenced by the culture. Consequences result after the concept has occurred. In this case, the nurses should use the maternal attitude to predict the mothers’ behavior towards vaccination and, in essence, improve the vaccination rate. Therefore, once the nurses have comprehended the definition of maternal attitudes, they will stimulate the parents to give their children all the required vaccines and, in turn, prevent the mortality rate, disabilities, and illnesses caused by the vaccine-preventable diseases.
Method
The focus of this part is to analyze the concept of maternal attitudes. The concept analysis of this study will utilize the Wilsonian method that was adjusted by Walker and Avant. Ratanasiripong and Chai (2013) research exploited this method in the analysis of the vaccination attitude against the human papillomavirus. The philosophical underpinning of this method is attaining the fact by seeking an answer from a unique viewpoint and then pursuing answers from different viewpoints. Consequently, this study may not get the real meaning of the maternal attitude but it will come close to it.
A search strategy was utilized to find relevant research studies addressing the concept of maternal attitudes. After entering the keyword term “maternal attitude” in the “title search” on the PubMed, PubMed Health, and Medline databases, more than 13,300 articles were identified. The maternal attitude concept has been used in the nursing discipline to conduct various research studies. Literature between 2006 and 2017 was included in the search and limited to the English published papers. The screening of the search results was done by reviewing the titles and abstracts for relevance, where they were retrieved and fully reviewed.
The study at this point will create the plan for the concept analysis by providing an in-depth analysis of the eight steps of Walker and Avant model. However, the results of the analysis will not be yielded at this point. The concept analysis of this study exploited the following steps. The first step is to select the concept to be analyzed, which in the case of this study, it is the maternal attitude towards vaccinating their 1-5 years old children. The second step is determining the goal of the analysis, which is defining the concept of maternal attitudes toward vaccination of their children. By the end of the analysis, the study will distinguish the ordinary and scientific usage of these concepts, add more information to the existing theory, and develop a working definition (Ratanasiripong & Chai, 2013; Nuopponen, 2010). The third step is assessing how investigators and theorists are using this term. This is important in exploring the usefulness of these concepts in various fields. The fourth step according to Walker and Avant is defining the attributes of each concept. This is a crucial step in the Wilsonian method where the concepts will be distinguished from each other through the definition of their characteristics. This will generate a cluster of the frequently used characteristics of the concepts.
The fifth step is to identify at least one model case to represent the use of these concepts with a real life example (Reynolds, 2007; Nuopponen, 2010). The identification of the model cases is important in defining and refining the attributes of the concepts. This leads to the next step of identifying the illegitimate, contrary, borderline, or related cases of the concepts. According to the Wilsonian method, an analysis is incomplete if there are overlapping attributes as well as contradictions of these attributes. Therefore, it is important to make the case stronger by assessing it using additional cases. The seventh step is identifying the antecedents and consequences. This is important in defining the events that resulted from the occurrence of the concept. The last step of the model is the critical features with their practical referents of the real world. This step is crucial in the nursing field since it provides the clinicians with a concise and observable phenomenon that can be used to diagnose the existing concept for a particular group of people (Chinn & Kramer, 2011; Reynolds, 2007; Nuopponen, 2010). Hence, the utilization of these eight steps will help nurses to have a clear understanding of the maternal attitudes towards children vaccination.
References
Ahmed, S. M., Abd-El Rahman, D. A., & Masoed, E. S. (2013). Mothers’ Awareness and Knowledge of Under Five Years Regarding Immunization in Minia City Egypt. Life Science Journal, 10(4), 1224-1232.
Ansong, D., Tawfik, D. Ato Williams, E., Benson, S., Nyanor, I., Boakye, I., … Dickson, T. (2014). Suboptimal Vaccination Rates in Rural Ghana despite Positive Caregiver Attitudes towards Vaccination. Journal of Vaccines & Immunization, 2(2), 7-15. http://dx.doi.org/10.14312/2053-1273.2014-2
Awadh, A., Hassali, M., Al-lela, O., Bux, S., Elkalmi, R., & Hadi, H. (2014). Immunization Knowledge and Practice among Malaysian Parents: A Questionnaire Development and Pilot-Testing. BMC Public Health, 14(1). http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-14-1107
Benin, A. (2006). Qualitative Analysis of Mothers’ Decision-Making about Vaccines for Infants: The Importance of Trust. PEDIATRICS, 117(5), 1532-1541. http://dx.doi.org/10.1542/peds.2005-1728
Chinn, P. L. & Kramer, M. A. (2011). Integrated knowledge development in nursing (8th Ed.). St. Louis, MO: Mosby
Naik, J. D., Jain, S., Babar, S. D., Radhey, B, K., Kamble, G., & Gajbhijiye, R. (2016). Awareness of Measles among Mothers of Under Five Children Attending UHC Immunization Clinic of Government Medical College. Scholars Journal of Applied Medical Sciences, 4(4), 1287-1290.
Noupponen, A. (2010). Methods of Concept Analysis: A Comparative Study. LSP Journal, 1(1), 4-13.
Ramadan, H., Soliman, S., & Abd El-kader, R. (2016). Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Mothers toward Children’s Obligatory Vaccination. IOSR Journal of Nursing and Health Science, 05(04), 22-28. http://dx.doi.org/10.9790/1959-0504022228
Ratanasiripong, N., & Chai, K. (2013). A Concept Analysis of Attitude toward Getting Vaccinated against Human Papillomavirus. Nursing Research and Practice, 2013, 1-5. http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/373805
Reynolds, P. D. (2007). A primer in theory construction. Boston, MA: Pearson Allyn and Bacon Classics
Vonasek, B., Bajunirwe, F., Jacobson, L., Twesigye, L., Dahm, J., & Grant, M. et al. (2016). Do Maternal Knowledge and Attitudes towards Childhood Immunizations in Rural Uganda Correlate with Complete Childhood Vaccination? PLOS ONE, 11(2), e0150131. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0150131
