The knowledge, attitudes and beliefs of midwives on the vaccination coverage rates in Perth’s Aboriginal children

Abstract

Background Midwives are well placed to promote vaccination awareness throughout a women’s pregnancy and strengthen childhood vaccination demand following hospital discharge. In Perth, Western Australia, Aboriginal children experience some of the lowest vaccination coverage rates across the nation. To identify factors preventing greater vaccination uptake amongst the target population, a theory-based study was conducted with midwives across two Perth maternity hospitals to explore behavioural attributes, knowledge, attitudes and beliefs surrounding vaccination provision and the vaccines administered to Aboriginal children. Methods A purpose-designed questionnaire was distributed to midwives working in two Perth public maternity hospitals. The proximal constructs of The Theory of Planned Behavior were used to frame the questionnaire to enable the barriers to greater vaccination coverage to be identified and behaviourally situated. Descriptive statistics described the demographics of the study sample. Chi-square and the Fisher’s exact test were used to identify associations between midwife characteristics and awareness of the coverage rates. Significance was set at α = 0.05. Results Of the 58 midwives who completed the study questionnaire, 77.2% were unaware of the sub-optimal vaccination coverage in Perth’s Aboriginal children. Level of education (p = 0.53) and years worked as a practising midwife (p = 0.47) were not found to be associated with an awareness of the coverage rates. Approximately, 50% of midwives reported some concern over the efficacy of childhood vaccines, 44.4% did not feel confident with their knowledge of vaccines, while 33.3% do not routinely discuss childhood vaccinations with parents prior to hospital discharge. Conclusions Key findings in the study identified that a range of educational, leadership and system-based issues are affecting midwives’ capacity to play a more substantial role in influencing vaccination coverage in Perth’s Aboriginal children.

The Impact of the No Jab No Play and No Jab No Pay Legislation in Australia: A Scoping Review

“…In Victoria, full coverage of 5-year-old Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children was 97.9% post-implementation of NJNPlay [15]. However, despite these encouraging findings, some geographical areas report lower coverage for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children [40] While it is evident that the combined NJNPay and NJNPlay legislations have contributed to increased vaccination coverage among children, not all agree that mandates are necessary in a country with high overall coverage [3]. Debate about the necessity of mandates in countries with relatively high coverage centres largely around inequities associated with lack of access to early education and opportunity for parents to secure employment, both of which are more likely to impact lower socio-economic families [3,41].…”

“…In Victoria, full coverage of 5-year-old Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children was 97.9% post-implementation of NJNPlay [ 15 ]. However, despite these encouraging findings, some geographical areas report lower coverage for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children [ 40 ]…”