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School-Based Influenza Vaccination: Parents’ Perspectives

BACKGROUND: School-age children are important drivers of annual influenza epidemics yet influenza vaccination coverage of this population is low despite universal publicly funded influenza vaccination in Alberta, Canada. Immunizing children at school may potentially increase vaccine uptake. As paren...

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Autores principales: Lind, Candace, Russell, Margaret L., MacDonald, Judy, Collins, Ramona, Frank, Christine J., Davis, Amy E.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3970961/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24686406
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0093490
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author Lind, Candace
Russell, Margaret L.
MacDonald, Judy
Collins, Ramona
Frank, Christine J.
Davis, Amy E.
author_facet Lind, Candace
Russell, Margaret L.
MacDonald, Judy
Collins, Ramona
Frank, Christine J.
Davis, Amy E.
author_sort Lind, Candace
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: School-age children are important drivers of annual influenza epidemics yet influenza vaccination coverage of this population is low despite universal publicly funded influenza vaccination in Alberta, Canada. Immunizing children at school may potentially increase vaccine uptake. As parents are a key stakeholder group for such a program, it is important to consider their concerns. PURPOSE: We explored parents’ perspectives on the acceptability of adding an annual influenza immunization to the immunization program that is currently delivered in Alberta schools, and obtained suggestions for structuring such a program. PARTICIPANTS: Forty-eight parents of children aged 5-18 years participated in 9 focus groups. Participants lived in urban areas of the Alberta Health Services Calgary Zone. FINDINGS: Three major themes emerged: Advantages of school-based influenza vaccination (SBIV), Disadvantages of SBIV, and Implications for program design & delivery. Advantages were perceived to occur for different populations: children (e.g. emotional support), families (e.g. convenience), the community (e.g. benefits for school and multicultural communities), the health sector (e.g. reductions in costs due to burden of illness) and to society at large (e.g. indirect conduit of information about health services, building structure for pandemic preparedness, building healthy lifestyles). Disadvantages, however, might also occur for children (e.g. older children less likely to be immunized), families (e.g. communication challenges, perceived loss of parental control over information, choices and decisions) and the education sector (loss of instructional time). Nine second-level themes emerged within the major theme of Implications for program design & delivery: program goals/objectives, consent process, stakeholder consultation, age-appropriate program, education, communication, logistics, immunizing agent, and clinic process. CONCLUSIONS: Parents perceived advantages and disadvantages to delivering annual seasonal influenza immunizations to children at school. Their input gives a framework of issues to address in order to construct robust, acceptable programs for delivering influenza or other vaccines in schools.
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spelling pubmed-39709612014-04-04 School-Based Influenza Vaccination: Parents’ Perspectives Lind, Candace Russell, Margaret L. MacDonald, Judy Collins, Ramona Frank, Christine J. Davis, Amy E. PLoS One Research Article BACKGROUND: School-age children are important drivers of annual influenza epidemics yet influenza vaccination coverage of this population is low despite universal publicly funded influenza vaccination in Alberta, Canada. Immunizing children at school may potentially increase vaccine uptake. As parents are a key stakeholder group for such a program, it is important to consider their concerns. PURPOSE: We explored parents’ perspectives on the acceptability of adding an annual influenza immunization to the immunization program that is currently delivered in Alberta schools, and obtained suggestions for structuring such a program. PARTICIPANTS: Forty-eight parents of children aged 5-18 years participated in 9 focus groups. Participants lived in urban areas of the Alberta Health Services Calgary Zone. FINDINGS: Three major themes emerged: Advantages of school-based influenza vaccination (SBIV), Disadvantages of SBIV, and Implications for program design & delivery. Advantages were perceived to occur for different populations: children (e.g. emotional support), families (e.g. convenience), the community (e.g. benefits for school and multicultural communities), the health sector (e.g. reductions in costs due to burden of illness) and to society at large (e.g. indirect conduit of information about health services, building structure for pandemic preparedness, building healthy lifestyles). Disadvantages, however, might also occur for children (e.g. older children less likely to be immunized), families (e.g. communication challenges, perceived loss of parental control over information, choices and decisions) and the education sector (loss of instructional time). Nine second-level themes emerged within the major theme of Implications for program design & delivery: program goals/objectives, consent process, stakeholder consultation, age-appropriate program, education, communication, logistics, immunizing agent, and clinic process. CONCLUSIONS: Parents perceived advantages and disadvantages to delivering annual seasonal influenza immunizations to children at school. Their input gives a framework of issues to address in order to construct robust, acceptable programs for delivering influenza or other vaccines in schools. Public Library of Science 2014-03-31 /pmc/articles/PMC3970961/ /pubmed/24686406 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0093490 Text en © 2014 Lind et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Lind, Candace
Russell, Margaret L.
MacDonald, Judy
Collins, Ramona
Frank, Christine J.
Davis, Amy E.
School-Based Influenza Vaccination: Parents’ Perspectives
title School-Based Influenza Vaccination: Parents’ Perspectives
title_full School-Based Influenza Vaccination: Parents’ Perspectives
title_fullStr School-Based Influenza Vaccination: Parents’ Perspectives
title_full_unstemmed School-Based Influenza Vaccination: Parents’ Perspectives
title_short School-Based Influenza Vaccination: Parents’ Perspectives
title_sort school-based influenza vaccination: parents’ perspectives
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3970961/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24686406
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0093490
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