Changes in parental barriers to immunizations.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to explore if parental barriers to childhood immunizations change over time.

DESIGN AND SAMPLE: Using secondary data, a pretest post-test design was employed to measure changes in parental barriers to childhood immunizations in the first 7 months of life. Thirty-nine parent/infant dyads were included in this study.

MEASURES: The Searching for Hardship and Obstacles to Shots (SHOTS) Survey was completed by a parent when their infant was between one and 28 days old (prior to their first immunizations) and again when the child was 6-7 months of age.

RESULTS: In this study, parental barriers to immunizations decreased over time. Specifically, six individual items related to accessing immunizations decreased from baseline to 7 months of age. In addition, the Access to Shots subscale decreased significantly (p = 0.010) between the two time periods. In less educated parents, the Importance of Immunizations subscale decreased over time.

CONCLUSION: Given the findings and trends in changes identified in this study, more exploration is necessary to understand what parental barriers change over time and how these changes affect immunization rates in early infancy.