ADHERENCE: YOCKLEY AND GLENWICK Flashcards
(17 cards)
What is the aim
- to evaluate the impact of 4 conditions for motivating parents to have their children immunised
Describe the sample
- Children were under the age of 5
- Needed one or more inoculation for tetanus or rubella
- Sample of 2101 preschool children
- recruited from a public health clinic in Midwestern city in the USA
- Final sample consisted of 715 children
- 50% were female
- 64% were white
Describe the methodology
- It was a field experiment
- longitudinal design with a follow up 3 months later
- condcuted in natural setting
What was done in order to prevent confounding variables
- Parents with 2 or more children with no immunisations were classed as families rather than the individual children. This was to avoid them receiving conflicting conditions
State the 4 Ivs
- General prompt
- Specific prompt
- Specific prompt with extended clinic hours
- Specific prompt with a money incentive
Describe the general prompt
‘Dear parent: Unless your doctor decided differently, your child needs X doses of X vaccines at X ages. If your child is behind in anny of them, I urge you to make an appointment’
Describe the specific prompt
‘To the Parents of (Childs name), our records show that it is time for…to receive the following shots (specific list) shots may be obtained free of charge at the: (Specific clinci location, dates, times)
Describe the Specific prompt with extended clinic hours
’ ATTENTION: FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE, TWO SPECIAL OFF HOURS CLINICS ARE BEING HELD AT THE (clinic name and address) Just sign all of your children in at the clinic and you may go out for the evevning or day while we take care of them FREE of charge.
Describe the money incentive prompt
- ‘ATTENTION: IN AN EFFORT TO
GET PARENTS TO HAVE THEIR CHILDREN IMMUNISED AGAINST CHILDHOOD DISEASES,
THE AKRON HEALTH DEPARTMENT WITH SUPPORT FROM B. F. GOODRICH IS GIVING AWAY
$175.00 IN CASH PRIZES TO PARENTS WHO TURN IN THE TICKET ATTACHED TO THIS PAGE.’
Describe the control groups
Contact group: Were given a telephone call about whether child had been immunised and demographic info but did not prompt the child to get immunised
No contact group: Received no contact during the study.
What were the 3 DVs
- The number of children receiving one or more immunisations at the clinic
- The number of target children attending the clinic for any reason
- The total number of immunisations received by the target children.
State a result
- The monetary incentive was the most effective at getting parents to bring their child to get immunised while the general prompt was the least effective
State the 2 conclusions
- Using behavioural incentives to motivate parents is effective
- A single general prompt is not enought to motivate parents.
State 2 methodological strengths
- Participants were randomly assigned to conditions. This means that participant variables such as personality will not bias results. Researchers can confidently say that the monetary incentive is what prompted parents to inoculate their child
- It followed standardised procedures such as the same prompts within groups. This means it can be replicated to test for reliability
State 3 weaknesses
- May not be generalisable to other parts of the USA or to other countries because parents from different socioeconomic backgrounds and cultures may not be motivated in the same way. There could be places where there is mistrust in immunisations involving a money reward.
- The final sample was 37% less than the original sample. This could introduce bias into the sample as there may be more of a certain sex of children and so may not be representative.
- Parents did not consent to take part. They were unaware that they were participants and that their behaviour was being manipulated. There’s also the ethical question of whether it is right to encourage one group with money in order to get their child immunised
Application to the real world:
- The study has practical applications
- Where immunisation levels are low, these programs might help increase the number of parents getting their children vaccinated
Use of children:
- Despite the study focusing on the behaviour of the parents they also considered the children.
- When designing the study, their interventions could have potentially negatively impacted vaccination uptake such as being in the control condition.
- However they ensured that the control groups received a follow-up letter reminding parents to vaccinate their children, ensuring that no group was disadvantaged.
