MEASLES INFORMATION VACCINE HESITANCY-CASE STUDY OF MOTHERS IN MINNA, NIGER STATE

Abstract

Vaccine hesitancy has been growing in an alarming rate and as a result, innocent children are dying. This study investigated the information behaviour of mothers in Minna, Niger state about information on measles vaccination. Information processing theory was also used as a theoretical framework while grounded theory was used as the methodology. Also, concept mapping and in-depth interview were employed to collect data until saturation level was attained at the fifteenth respondent. The researcher used an analytic inductive process to identify 384 narratives, the narratives were further organized into 28 recurring topics and further collapsed into 8 emergent categories to explain hesitancy to measles vaccination. Findings indicated that hesitant women in Minna, Niger State, were aware of measles vaccination but they did not subscribe to using orthodox medicines in curing measles .The findings also showed that the term “viral” did not exist in the native vocabulary of the women in Minna, Niger state. So they do not believe measles is curable. It is aslo clear that they received conflicting information on vaccination from different sources hence their hesitancy. The research however recommended amongst others that information professionals should swing from the normal informative learning process which has proven ineffective (from the findings) and embrace the transformative learning processes. Also, there is a critical need to understudy the vaccine cognition of parents to determine their cognitive perspectives and then design communicative learning strategies for measles vaccination in the context and situations of Minna.