4 5

SECTION TWO
IMMUNISED CHILDREN

iv. Age when immunised.

v. Was treatment completed? Reasons given for incompletion of treatment.

vi. How parents learned of the immunisation scheme.

vii. What decided parents to have their children immunised.

viii. Proportion paying own Doctor for immunisation.

ix. Consultation of husband about immunisation.

iv. Age of children when immunised.

Table 6

The age when children were immunised is given in this table. Abstracting the results for children of school and pre-school age gives the following:-

which confirms that children in the “Good” areas are immunised earlier in life than children in the “bad” areas.

v. Was treatment completed? Reasons given for incompletion of treatment.

Table 7

At the time of interview, of the children immunised in England and Wales about 12% of the under 5's and 5% of the over 5's had not completed the course of 2 visits, in Scotland 5% of the under 5's and 1% of the over 5's had not completed the course.

Most of these cases however are simply due to the fact that the treat­ment was still in progress, or to a less extent that the children after Schick test were found to be immune. In England and Wales the number of cases where treatment was virtually not complete was 33, or 2% of the child­ren in the immunised group. In Scotland the number of cases was 5, or .7% of children in the immunised group.

Table 8

The reasons given for incompletion of treatment were that the child was away from school when the doctor visited, that the child was ill when the second visit became due, that the mother was ill and unable to take the child for the second visit or that the family had moved away from the district and thus disturbed completing the immunisation arrangement. Only 4 children, or .2% of the England and Welsh immunised group, disliked the treatment to such an extent that they would not attend for the second visit.

In Scotland the reasons given for incompletion of treatment were also that the child was ill at the time or was away from school.

vi. How parents learned of the Immunisation scheme.

In the English and Welsh districts some 49% said they had learned of the scheme from the school attended by their children, 45% from their Welfare Centre, doctor or health visitor. 25% of parents mentioned publicity through the press, radio, film, posters and other publicity media. 12% said they had learned of the scheme through neighbours, friends or relatives, including the husband.

Table 9

In considering the value of the Diphtheria immunisation publicity through the press, radio, film, posters, etc., as shown by Table 9, it should be borne in mind that the true value is underestimated. Publicity would certainly have operated on the neighbours, friends and relatives of the 12% who return this answer. Publicity would also have been a factor in influencing the 45% who say they learned of the scheme from their Welfare Centre, doctor or health visitor. To some extent this would be true also of the 49% who mention the schools. The exact value of publicity is difficult to measure, but it is certainly higher than the 25% rating given by the table.

1.7% said they learned of the scheme from the cinema. Up to the time of the enquiry there had been two films and two news-reel trailer, as follows:-

“Empty Bed” (C.C.H.E.) some years old and still shown occasionally. “Defeat Diphtheria”, June, 1941, shown principally through M.O.I. film road shows.

News-reel trailers, June, 1941, and 13th July, 1942.

The second of the trailers was released immediately prior to the start of the enquiry. In view of the number and coverage of these films and trailers the above rating is probably not an unsatisfactory result.

Except perhaps for the smaller proportion mentioning the Welfare Centre, there are no significant differences in the answers of parents interviewed in Scotland.

In this table the replies are also broken down for families having no children older than 5 years, and families with children up to. 14 years, Approximately this is a division of families with and without Children of school age, so that the effect of Diphtheria immunisation propaganda, via the school can be seen. The fact is brought out that the most important medium in the case of families with no children of school age is the Wel­fare Centre in England and Wales.

vii. What decided parents to have their children immunised.

Table 10

When asked what had decided them to have their children immunised against Diphtheria parents in England and Wales replied:

About 4.9% of parents of immunised children mentioned the Diphtheria film, radio talks, newspapers or periodicals as factors deciding them. The analysis of replies of parents with children all under school age shows the deciding factors to be much the same, except that there were more cases of parents acting on the advice of their doctor or nurse, 2% said they were decided by a form received from a school.

The analysis for the Scottish areas shows the same deciding factors, except that more parents had acted on the advice of their doctor or nurse.

viii. Proportion paying own doctor for immunisation treatment.

Table 11

The enquiry shows that in the districts surveyed 59% of the A and B classes paid a fee to their doctor for immunisation treatment. In the lower social classes a much greater proportion took advantage of the free immunisation scheme, only the C class and 4% of the D class paying a fee to their doctor for this service.

ix. Consultation of husband about immunising children.

Table 12

The replies to the question “Did you ask for your children to be immunised yourself, or did you wait to consult your husband?” show that 40% of wives interviewed took their own decision in the matter, and that husbands. In some cases the suggestion originated decision was arrived at jointly. A small proportion, 5% of wives, were unable to give a clear answer, probably because of the difficulty of determining which partner had first made the suggestion.

The analysis by social class suggests that wives in the A and B social classes are rather more inclined to consult their husbands about such a step as immunisation than wives in the C class, and wives in the C class more than those in the D class.