Intervention to Promote Childhood Vaccinations and Influence Vaccination Attitudes

Today, vaccines are still recognized as one of the most important public health services, and millions of lives are saved each year. Despite the success of vaccination, such as eradicating certain diseases in the community and preventing epidemics, it is the fact that approximately 20 million infants/children have insufficient access to vaccines every year. The main reasons for this are vaccine hesitancy or vaccine rejection. Deaths from measles decreased by 73% worldwide between 2000 and 2018, preventing an estimated 23.2 million deaths. According to the Extended Immunization Program in our country, 13 routine vaccines in total are provided free of charge by primary health care services. According to the results of the Turkey Demographic and Health Surveys, the minimum vaccinations required for 12-23 month old children to be deemed to have received all age-appropriate vaccines are as follows; one dose of tuberculosis vaccine, three doses of pertussis-tetanus-polio-hemophilus influenza type b vaccine, three doses of hepatitis b vaccine, three doses of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, one dose of oral polio vaccine. Considering both the vaccination card of the children (59%) and the personal statements (8%) of the mothers in our society, it was determined that only 67% of the children aged 12-23 months received all age-appropriate vaccinations. In addition, 2% of 12-23-month-old children have never been vaccinated. In addition, 50% of 24-35 months old children have all their age-appropriate vaccinations, while 3% have never been vaccinated. Looking at all these rates, it is seen that some babies/children are not vaccinated for various reasons, even in our country alone. To increase vaccination rates, preventive interventions should be developed to identify the causes of vaccine hesitations and reduce these hesitations. What needs to be done first to eliminate vaccine hesitations should be to increase the perceived sensitivity of individuals to the vaccine and decrease their expectations for negative results. At the same time, it is necessary to know the factors that cause negative attitudes about vaccination and to make them positive so that attitudes can turn into behaviors. According to the Health Belief Model, which is one of the models related to the development and maintenance of health behaviors, the probability of a person taking action to prevent the disease depends on the perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefit, and perceived barrier factors, and indirectly includes the probability of exhibiting preventive health behavior. Among the factors affecting the vaccination decision of pregnant women, vaccine risk perceptions are effective; It has been determined that pregnant women who have general knowledge about the vaccine, those who know that there is a national vaccination policy, and those who believe that the vaccine is beneficial for their babies are more likely to be vaccinated. For this reason, it is recommended that the advice of healthcare professionals should be personalized. In line with all these data, the aim of the study is to examine the effectiveness of the intervention of training to be given to pregnant women about childhood vaccinations and sending messages to their spouses within the framework of the Health Belief Model; to evaluate the effect on childhood vaccination rates and vaccination attitudes in the postpartum period.