Abstract
Background: Childhood vaccinations are currently a hot topic in the Danish public health debate, particularly the HPV-vaccine as part of the Danish childhood vaccination programme. Parents' decisions about vaccination is linked to a choice related to the individual child's health. In recent years, a declining commitment to this health offer is recorded, where parents doubt and concern about childhood vaccines is seen as a growing phenomenon. Concurrently, the current information base is being challenged. A user-oriented approach is verified through the right to informed consent, as stated in the health legislation. Parents' experience of the current information base has not been studied in a Danish context, which indicates a lack of knowledge.
Objective: The aim of the thesis is to examine parents' experiences related to the current information base in the Danish childhood vaccination program, based on a user-oriented approach. Furthermore, parents' wishes and needs for information and involvement is examined, in order to derive change proposals adapted to these.
Method: This thesis uses an interpretive interviewstudy with semi-structured interviews of first-time parents, including five individual interviews with mothers and one dyadic interview with parents. The empirical analysis is based on a hermeneutical analysis including the use of an abductive approach in the fourth step of the analysis. In addition, selected theoretical concepts of Niklas Luhmann, Thomas Breck and Sherry R. Arnstein are included. Furthermore, a systematic literature search is conducted for the production of a literary analysis as a basis for themes in the interview guide and for use in the discussion of the results from the empirical analysis.
Results: It appears that the current level of participation is lower than the level corresponding to the parents' wishes and needs, just as they had only received limited information about vaccination. A general experience of unpredictability related to how, when and by whom the parents could expect to receive information, occurs. Furthermore, early information prior to the child's first vaccination at three months of age, as well as balanced and combined written and verbal information, emerged as being important. The pamphlet "The Danish childhood vaccination programme 2015" by Sundhedsstyrelsen is experienced usable, but the length and language herein perceived as being at too high a level for the general public. Furthermore, the results show that the parent training programme is considered as an ideal place for articulation and dissemination of childhood vaccination, by virtue of trust and exchange of experience as essential components in these fields.
Conclusion: More perspectives of change, related to the practice and the municipal health plans, occurs Overall early information communication, balanced information and articulation of the choice related to the childhood vaccination program, is identified as recommendations for future health care work. Moreover, a need for more focus on procedures for the extradition of written information appears, as well as a need for verbal information as a supplement to written information. More specifically, it is recommended that the pamphlet from Sundhedsstyrelsen is changed to adapt the level of the general population and that the parent training programme introduces a topic on vaccination. It can be concluded that in several areas the need for further research involving relevant stakeholders from the health care system, to achieve a holistic perspective on practice-oriented options of change.