Does Mother Know Best? Insights from Focus Group Research with Hesitant Moms

Theoretical Background and research questions/hypothesis: Public confidence in the immunization system is critical to maintaining the high vaccine-coverage rates needed to protect communities and individuals from vaccine-preventable diseases. Recent attention has been placed on factors influencing vaccine confidence in the US, even globally, but the state of the science around vaccine confidence is still developing. With a large portion of vaccinations being administered during childhood, understanding parents’ perceptions about childhood immunizations, to ultimately design better approaches for communicating about vaccination, is important to further foster confidence in vaccines and immunization.

Methods: This qualitative research seeks to gain insights into the factors that influence confidence in recommended vaccines as well as how messages and materials may affect mothers’ confidence levels. The focus is on vaccine-hesitant mothers with children five years of age or less. Eight focus groups, stratified by geography, environment, and socioeconomic status, are being undertaken. Four of the groups (n=36) will be held in Pennsylvania, of which two groups will be in an urban environment (n=18) and two will be in a suburban environment (n=18). The other four groups (n=36) will be held in California, of which two groups (n=18) will be in an urban environments and two (n=18) will be in a suburban environment. Given video and animation are being increasingly used to explain medical and scientific concepts, participants will be asked to provide feedback on short videos that address how the immune system works, herd immunity, and vaccine safety.

Results: Qualitative data analysis will be used to identify overarching themes across the focus groups. Themes, insights, and illustrative quotes will be identified and provided for each of the major discussion areas: primary health concerns for children; confidence beliefs and perceptions, including for recommended vaccines; facilitators and barriers to confidence; and reactions to print and video vaccine information. Implications for vaccine education will also be provided. 

Conclusions: We anticipate that results will provide helpful insights into how to address and build parent confidence, as well as insights into the potential value of adding short video to vaccine education efforts.   

Implications for research and/or practice: We expect the findings to have value for those developing vaccine education materials and resources designed to foster or increase vaccine confidence.