Children's evaluations of H1N1 clinics – insights in improving public health vaccinations

Background: During the 2009-2010 H1N1 pandemic, Somerset County Health Department (SCHD) conducted a number of vaccination clinics focused on school aged children. In addition to traditional hot wash evaluations, SCHD opted to seek perspectives and feedback from vaccinated children to validate what the clinics did well, and to identify ways to improve efficiency and make the vaccination process less emotionally traumatic for young participants.

Methods: SCHD created an informal feedback form, designed for children to complete with the assistance of their parents to help SCHD create a more efficient and kid-friendly mass vaccination clinic process. With their parent's direct oversight/assistance, children at our clinics were provided with a post-vaccination activity sheet with a 3-point Likert scale comprised of emoticons. This “happy face” evaluation form also provided space for children to include comments and thoughts.

Results: 84% of respondents, with a mean age of 7, gave the vaccination experience a “thumbs-up” rating. A variety of write-in comments from the children proved to be informative, insightful, humorous and provided valuable formative input to improve the efficiency and kid-friendliness of the mass vaccination process. A comparison of the children's ratings with the hot wash assessments showed agreement in perceptions of each clinic's efficiency. A number of improvements were implemented to our clinics, based on the comments and input of the children who completed the evaluation process.

Conclusions: Children's observations can be a powerful resource in creating routine and emergency clinic operations that are more efficient and less traumatic for the younger set.