THE UTILIZATION OF IMMUNIZATIONS AND WELL BABY CARE BY LOW INCOME LATINA MOTHERS (INFANTS).
Contributors: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Published: 1996
Number of pages: 227
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Sociology, Ethnic and Racial Studies.; Health Sciences, Public Health.; Health Sciences, Human Development.
Description: The purposes of this study were to respond to the lack of data regarding utilization of immunizations among low income Latino's in a southeastern state, by evaluating the effect of multiple indicators on the mothers' initiation of immunization services by the time their infants achieved three months of age and to describe access indicators which were of clinical interest but not amenable to predictive analyses.

The Aday and Andersen Framework was used to guide the design of this prospective survey in which the investigator utilized initial and follow-up interviews (3 months), with the sample of 102 infants' mothers, and infant's chart reviews to collect utilization data for immunizations (IMZS) and well baby care (WBC). A questionnaire was developed which contains closed and open-ended responses regarding the mothers' personal and family characteristics, acculturation level, beliefs about IMZS and WBC, personal and organizational access resources, child health care information, barriers to use of care, satisfaction with care and recommendations for changes in health care services. English and Spanish language versions of the questionnaire were developed by modifying the Hispanic Health and Nutrition Survey, adding new sections, and then translating and back-translating the completed instrument. Acculturation level was measured using the scale developed by Marin, Sabogal, Marin, Otero-Sabogal, and Perez-Stable.

Immunizations were begun by infant age three months by 74.5% of the sample. An eight variable model, containing the indicators of mothers': age, education, number of children, acculturation level, partner support scale, organizational support scale, encountered barriers and preventing barriers scales was analyzed using logistic regression to evaluate the model's ability to predict utilization of immunizations. The full model was significant (p =.0001); however among the eight multivariate indicators within the model significance of $\leq$.05 was confined to mothers': age (p =.01), number of children (p =.03), partner support scale (p =.009), and preventing barriers scale (p =.004). Among the descriptive data results: the mothers have strong beliefs in the importance of IMZS and WBC, English language skills were limited but this and other cultural factors were not major issues for care, satisfaction was generally high, the most frequent recommendations for changes to services were to add evening and weekend hours.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 57-05, Section: B, page: 3128.

Thesis (PH.D.)--THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL, 1996.

School code: 0153.