Beliefs underlying UK parents' views towards MMR promotion interventions: A qualitative study

Abstract

This study sought to extract underlying beliefs towards measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccination from UK parents' views towards potential motivational and organisational interventions to boost MMR vaccination. Thematic analysis of transcripts of five focus groups identified five underlying psychological themes: parents' information needs, distrust of government sources, trust of other parents, attentional biases towards risk information and problems of achieving ''balance'' in MMR information provision. These are likely to represent important psychological barriers to or facilitators of the effectiveness of MMR promotion interventions.

The benefit of the doubt or doubts over benefits? A systematic literature review of perceived risks of vaccines in European populations

“…A few studies also reported beliefs that the diseases prevented by the MMR vaccine are mild, treatable, and not dangerous [135,138,140,142] and that children actually benefit from these infections [134,141,142]. Mistrust of governments was high [135,137,139], together with perceptions that doctors are dismissive of parents safety concerns [133,137,142].…”

“…Twelve articles studied MMR vaccination [132][133][134][135][136][137][138][139][140][141][142] and found that the most important concerns were about safety, with some articles reporting particular worries about autism [132,134,136-1 38,140,141]. A few studies also reported beliefs that the diseases prevented by the MMR vaccine are mild, treatable, and not dangerous [135,138,140,142] and that children actually benefit from these infections [134,141,142].…”

Are parents more willing to vaccinate their children than themselves?

“…First, results may be confounded by vaccination acceptability. We chose to focus scenarios on influenza vaccination because we assumed that it would minimize the risk of results being influenced by negative parental attitudes towards the vaccine, as have been documented towards the MMR vaccine (Gardner et al, 2010). Yet, parental resistance to vaccination more broadly has been documented in the UK and other European countries (Blume, 2006), and even parents that choose to vaccinate may worry about vaccine safety and side effects (Harvey, Good, Mason, and Reissland, 2013).…”

“…Weinstein, 1987), and that parents may be highly sensitive to risk when making healthrelated decisions for their children (e.g. Gardner, Davies, McAteer and Michie, 2010). Work on vaccination acceptance, in which two potential risks are present -disease risks associated with rejecting a vaccine, and possible complications arising from accepting a vaccine -has found that parents pay more attention to unlikely high-risk consequences than the likely benefits, despite acknowledgement of the low probability of aversive consequences being realized (Gardner et al, 2010).…”

“…Gardner, Davies, McAteer and Michie, 2010). Work on vaccination acceptance, in which two potential risks are present -disease risks associated with rejecting a vaccine, and possible complications arising from accepting a vaccine -has found that parents pay more attention to unlikely high-risk consequences than the likely benefits, despite acknowledgement of the low probability of aversive consequences being realized (Gardner et al, 2010). A telephone survey of UK healthcare workers during the 2009 swine influenza pandemic showed that respondents were significantly more likely to accept the vaccine for their child than for themselves (Rubin, Potts and Michie, 2011), but it is unclear whether this was due to greater risk-aversion when deciding for children, or a perception that the child was at increased risk.…”