title: Immunization status of casualty attenders: risk factors for non-compliance and attitudes to 'on the spot' immunization.
abstract: Outbreaks of vaccine preventable infections have focused attention on 'missed opportunities' for immunizing children. The immunization status of 520 consecutive children attending Casualty during a 10 day period was studied. Only 70% of children had received their diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis (DTP) and poliomyelitis immunization at the appropriate time, 13% had completed the schedule later than recommended and 17% had immunizations overdue by 4 weeks or more. For measles (mumps/rubella) vaccine (MM or MMR) 75% were up to date, 10% were given late and 15% were overdue. A subset of 171 families was interviewed to evaluate factors affecting compliance. Families possessing a Social Security 'Health Care Card', whose father was unemployed, who spoke poor English or who had lived in Australia for 5 years or less were significantly more likely (P < 0.02) to be inadequately immunized. There were 84 children whose immunization was overdue and who were well enough to be immunized. The parents of 70 (83%) of these 84 said that they would agree to 'on the spot' immunization if it were available; 14 (17%) parents refused, the commonest reason for refusal being that the parents felt that the child was too sick at the time to be immunized.
authors: Children's Hospital, Camperdown, New South Wales, Australia.
authors: K
authors: K
authors: Jones
authors: B
authors: B
authors: Fasher
authors: R
authors: R
authors: Hanson
authors: M
authors: M
authors: Burgess
authors: D
authors: D
authors: Isaacs
authors: P
authors: P
authors: Joshi
authors: R
authors: R
authors: Blanch
authors: J
authors: J
authors: Byrne
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003140:Communicable Disease Control / Q000379:methods*; D016001:Confidence Intervals; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007114:Immunization; D007115:Immunization Schedule; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D016017:Odds Ratio; D010349:Patient Compliance; D012307:Risk Factors; D013997:Time Factors