Vaccine information-seeking behaviour: its predictors and influence on vaccination during pregnancy

Pregnancy represents a high information need state, where uncertainty around medical intervention is common. As such, women often engage in vaccine information-seeking behaviour, a process that involves the gathering and use of information to inform the vaccine decision-making process. If this seeking occurs outside of official healthcare system channels, many healthcare professionals are concerned that this behaviour may lead women towards less reliable, potentially misleading information. The concept of vaccine information-seeking during pregnancy therefore warrants examination. In this thesis, I present two systematic reviews and two quantitative research papers related to the topic of vaccine information-seeking behaviour. These studies investigate the predictors of and influences on vaccine information-seeking behaviour both in general and specifically relating to UK women making a decision regarding the pertussis vaccination for pregnant women. In the systematic reviews, I synthesise the literature related to the measurement of trust in vaccination and how vaccine information-seeking behaviour has previously been investigated throughout the vaccine attitude and decision-making literature. The literature from these two review papers informed the design of two quantitative questionnaire studies. The first of these investigates the determinants of satisfaction with official information and the additional information-seeking behaviour of recently pregnant women in regards to the pertussis vaccination given during pregnancy. The second investigates how previously held attitudes towards vaccination influence vaccine information-seeking behaviour, and how such behaviours may in turn influence the vaccine decision-making process