Decision-Making about COVID-19 Vaccines among Health Care Workers and Their Adolescent Children

Lisa N Mansfield; Kristen Choi; Jeanne R Delgado; Mayra Macias; Corrine Munoz-Plaza; Bruno Lewin; David Bronstein; John Chang; Katia Bruxvoort

doi:10.1177/01939459231170981

Decision-Making about COVID-19 Vaccines among Health Care Workers and Their Adolescent Children

West J Nurs Res. 2023 Jul;45(7):665-673. doi: 10.1177/01939459231170981. Epub 2023 Apr 24.

Authors

Lisa N Mansfield^{1

2}, Kristen Choi^{3

4

5}, Jeanne R Delgado^{1

6}, Mayra Macias³, Corrine Munoz-Plaza³, Bruno Lewin⁷, David Bronstein⁷, John Chang³, Katia Bruxvoort^{3

8}

Affiliations

¹ National Clinician Scholars Program, Division of General Medicine & Health Services Research, Department of Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
² School of Nursing, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
³ Department of Research & Evaluation, Kaiser Permanente Southern California, Pasadena, CA, USA.
⁴ School of Nursing, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
⁵ Department of Health Policy and Management, Fielding School of Public Health, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
⁶ Division of General Pediatrics, Department of Pediatrics, Children's Hospital Los Angeles, University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
⁷ Southern California Permanente Medical Group, Kaiser Permanente Southern California, Pasadena, CA, USA.
⁸ Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA.

Abstract

Health care workers promote COVID-19 vaccination for adolescent patients, and as parents, may influence their own children to get vaccinated. We conducted virtual, semi-structured qualitative interviews with vaccinated health care workers and their adolescent children to explore their decision-making process for COVID-19 vaccination. In total, 21 health care workers (physicians, nurses, and medical staff) and their adolescent children (N = 17) participated in interviews. The following three themes described parent-adolescent decision-making for COVID-19 vaccination: (1) family anticipation and hesitation about COVID-19 vaccine approval; (2) parents' or adolescents' choice: the decision maker for adolescent COVID-19 vaccination; and (3) leveraging one's vaccination status to encourage others to get vaccinated. Nurses encouraged adolescent autonomy in decisions for COVID-19 vaccination while physicians viewed vaccination as the parent's decision. Health care workers and their adolescent children used role-modeling to motivate unvaccinated peers and may model their decision-making process for adolescent COVID-19 vaccination with their own children to support their patients' and parents' vaccine decisions.

Keywords: COVID-19 vaccination; adolescent health; family decision-making; immunizations; vaccine behaviors.

MeSH terms

Adolescent
COVID-19 Vaccines*
COVID-19* / prevention & control
Child
Decision Making
Health Personnel
Humans
Parents

Substances

COVID-19 Vaccines