Introduction
Evidence-based projects play an integral role in the healthcare system because it promotes the delivery of quality care to patients. One of the practices that is greatly affected by scientific evidence is children’s vaccination. Its effectiveness depends on the evidence provided to prove that it protects children from diseases. However, one of the issues in this practice is vaccine hesitancy, where parents delay or refuse to allow their children to be vaccinated. This has adversely affected the healthcare system since the quality of health of an individual starts at infancy stage.
Evidence-based Projects (EBP)
Master’s-prepared nurses engaging in evidence-based projects experience the following benefits. Firstly, EBP enables nurses to make informed decisions during care. They conduct extensive research before making any decision. Secondly, EBP allows nurses to offer care that meet the needs of patients. With evidence-informed projects, the nurses are equipped with relevant skills to provide quality care. Thirdly, EBP gives nurses the ability to make practice current and relevant. They integrate technology during research to improve their practice. Fourthly, nurses EBP to effectively engage relevant stakeholders such as patients during care (Dang & Dearholt, 2018).
Conceptual Model: Johns Hopkins Nursing Evidence-Based Practice Model
Johns Hopkins Nursing Evidence-Based Practice Model is a problem-solving approach to daily medical decision-making. The approach is frequently supported by user-friendly tools designed to guide a group or individual usage. The concept was created to especially satisfy the pressing needs of the modern practicing nurse officer, and it employs a three-step procedure known as PET, which stands for practice, evidence, and translation, as shown in the figure above (Dang & Dearholt, 2018). The model’s major purpose is to ensure that the most current study findings, as well as best practices, are quickly and appropriately integrated into daily patient care.
The model depends on practice, evidence, and translation to develop evidence-based projects. In practice, the activities involve forming an inter-professional team, creating EBP questions, and determining responsibility for leadership and arranging meetings. In the area of evidence, the tasks include aspects such as conducting internal and external searches for evidence, analyzing the quality of evidence, and creating suggestions for evidence synthesis. For translation, the activities include identifying the efficiency of suggestions, developing an action plan, and identifying outcomes (Dang & Dearholt, 2018).
Children Vaccination
Children’s vaccination is an important concept in the public due to its relevance to disease prevention among children. Infants are unable to effectively fight life-threatening illnesses due to weak immunity. As a result, child immunization is one of the most applied defense mechanisms for children. It offers immunity prior to exposure to serious illnesses (Kaufman et al., 2018). For example, it protects children from life-threatening illnesses such as measles, tetanus, polio, and many more. Therefore, children’s immunization is among the leading disease prevention approaches used to protect children.
Children’s vaccination is a process used in healthcare to improve the health of children and has been practiced for a long. It is perceived as an important process in the healthcare system because it allows the to achieve the expected health outcome of the community (Kaufman et al., 2018). To make it effective, the process relies on scientific information or evidence to achieve the intended purpose. Healthcare researchers have focused on research to remove any errors in children’s vaccination.
The Importance of Children’s Vaccination to NP Practice
Children’s vaccination plays an integral role in NP practice. The main role of NP is to offer primary care services to patients from infants to adulthood. Children’s vaccination helps NP practice achieve its key mandate. Firstly, it promotes optimal health among children through disease prevention. It helps NP in making sure that children’s health and well-being is protected. Secondly, it assists NP practice in getting rid of serious illnesses that might affect the health of children. Thirdly, the vaccination of children enables the NP to achieve the provision of quality healthcare services (Kaufman et al., 2018).
Concerns and Recommendation For Change
The main issue affecting the vaccination of children is vaccine hesitancy. It is defined as a state where parents delay or completely refuse to take their children for immunization despite the availability of the vaccine (Majid & Ahmad, 2020). In most cases, parents may have a feeling that the vaccine is a threat to their children’s health. However, this has ended up exposing some children to serious illnesses. To solve this issue, it is important to create awareness of the benefits of child immunization. Government officials and health providers should consider understanding the reason for hesitancy, counter the negative beliefs against vaccines, and enhance vaccine literacy,
Factors Influencing Change
There are internal and external factors that affect the adoption of the change. One of the internal factors is the lack of knowledge to handle the issue of vaccine hesitancy among some parents. Without adequate skills, healthcare providers and relevant parties have failed to end the issue. The other internal factor is the fact that health providers are unwilling to undertake the mandate. For the external environment, one of the factors is the religious beliefs that shape the values and practices of individuals and groups. Another external factor is the absence of government support to eliminate the problem.
NONPF Competencies
Some of the NONPF competencies that relate to children’s vaccination are technology and information literacy, leadership, and the healthcare delivery system. Firstly, technology and information literacy assist in the production and use of vaccines that enhance the health of children. Health providers use appropriate technical and scientific health information to produce vaccines. Secondly, healthcare delivery system competency ensures that healthcare providers offer health services that address the needs of culturally diverse populations. For example, it ensures that children’s vaccine production protects the beliefs of different cultures. Leadership determines the success or failure of children’s vaccination (Anthamatten et al., 2020).
Scientific foundation, quality, and policy are among the NONPF Competencies that relate to childhood vaccination. The scientific foundation ensures that vaccine production for children is founded on scientific knowledge. It involves the integration of knowledge from science into nursing practice. The other competency that has a relationship with children’s vaccines is policy. It promotes access, cost and delivery of children’s vaccines. For example, government policies on vaccines determine the cost of the vaccine and whether it is mandatory or not. Quality relates to children’s vaccines as it ensures that immunization promotes health and eliminates health risks (Anthamatten et al., 2020).
Conclusion
Children’s vaccination is a crucial aspect of disease prevention among children carried out by nursing practitioners. It enables healthcare providers to protect children from serious illnesses. However, the primary issue in this vaccination is vaccine hesitancy from parents. To solve this problem, there is a need for collaboration between healthcare providers, government, and other agencies in creating awareness through campaigns to enhance vaccine literacy. This is an indication that the success of this children’s vaccination is the integration of various NONPF Competencies.
References
Anthamatten, A., Pfieffer, M. L., Richmond, A., & Glassford, M. (2020). Exploring the utility of entrustable professional activities as a framework to enhance nurse practitioner education. Nurse Educator, 45(2), 83-87.
Dang, D., & Dearholt, S. (2018). Supplemental materials for Johns Hopkins Nursing Evidence-Based Practice: Model and Guidelines (3rd ed.). Sigma Theta Tau International.
Kaufman, J., Ryan, R., Walsh, L., Horey, D., Leask, J., Robinson, P., & Hill, S. (2018). Face‐to‐face interventions for informing or educating parents about early childhood vaccination. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, (5).
Majid, U., & Ahmad, M. (2020). The factors that promote vaccine hesitancy, rejection, or delay in parents. Qualitative Health Research, 30(11), 1762-1776.