Who decides about adolescent vaccines—and what blocks uptake?
Adolescents, parents, and clinicians shared overlapping and conflicting views on adolescent vaccination barriers and how to improve decisions.
Source
Understanding attitudes toward adolescent vaccination and the decision-making dynamic among adolescents, parents and providers
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Who decides about adolescent vaccines—and what blocks uptake?
These passages occur verbatim in the stored paper text. They support the points listed below; they do not verify every statement in the explanation.
What qualitative method was used?
For each of the practices recruited, we conducted three separate focus groups – that of adolescent patients in the practice, their parents, and their healthcare providers.
What decision process is the analytic focus?
Using a qualitative approach, this study provides insight into the vaccine decision-making dynamic among adolescents, their parents and healthcare providers.
What they did
Focus groups with 32 adolescents, 33 parents, and 28 healthcare providers explored attitudes, barriers, and decision dynamics for recommended adolescent vaccines.
What they found
Major barriers were limited vaccine knowledge/awareness and lack of routine preventive care. Groups shared some attitudes usable for interventions but differed in important ways; email/internet were suggested to improve information and communication.
The limits
What it doesn't show
Qualitative themes do not measure how much any message campaign raises coverage.
Key terms
- Adolescent vaccination
- Immunizations recommended in the teen years such as MCV4, Tdap, HPV, and influenza.
- Decision-making dynamic
- How teens, parents, and clinicians interact when choosing vaccines.
- Vaccine barriers
- Knowledge, access, and care-pattern obstacles to uptake.
- HPV vaccine
- Vaccine against human papillomavirus, among adolescent recommendations.
- Focus groups
- Facilitated group interviews used to explore attitudes qualitatively.
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Common questions
Who participated?
32 adolescents, 33 parents, and 28 providers across four practices.
Top barrier themes?
Knowledge gaps and lack of routine preventive visits.
Were opinions identical across groups?
No—similarities and notable differences both mattered.
Tech idea suggested?
Email and Internet to improve information and communication.
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