Date of this Version

2021

Document Type

DNP Project

Abstract

Research has shown that there is a significant decline in the number of adolescents who visit their primary care provider after the age of 16, in both male and females. Consequently, there has been a decline in the number of adolescents who receive preventative care, which includes routine immunizations. A comprehensive literature review demonstrated that there are several factors that lead to the decline in adolescent primary care visits and poor vaccine uptake. The proposed action plan was to create an educational campaign that can be used in primary care clinics or be delivered through educational facilities directly to the specific population such as high schools. Objectives for the project included identifying barriers and misconceptions within the adolescent population as well as identifying the most effective methods to deliver evidenced based information to the adolescent population. The Health Belief Model was used as the conceptual underpinning to help guide researchers in identifying attitudes and beliefs, as well as common barriers to vaccine uptake within the adolescent population. The proposed study was conducted through two phases. The first phase involved collecting data using surveys within the adolescent population. The data collected initiated the second phase which included the development of an educational campaign. Data collected from the study was used to develop an educational campaign that can be used to deliver age-appropriate and evidenced base information to adolescents in multiple settings by healthcare providers and educators.

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