Why do parents choose not to immunise their children?

Aims: To ascertain the reasons why some parents choose not to immunise their children and where these parents obtained their immunisation information.

Methods: Seventy general practitioners (GPs) in Christchurch who kept a record of children whose parents declined immunisation were asked to recruit these parents. Half of the GPs were able to invite the 76 parents of children declining immunisation to take part in this study.

Hospital restructuring: identifying the impact on patients and nurses.

Health systems throughout the democratic world have been subject to 'reform' in recent years as countries have attempted to contain the rapidly rising costs of health care. Because hospital care accounts for a large proportion of health sector spending, hospital restructuring has been an important part of those changes. In an attempt to make hospitals more efficient and cost-effective, New Zealand, like other countries, has introduced extensive changes to the way in which treatment and care are delivered to patients, and to the way nurses' work is organised and managed.

The earlier, the better: the effect of early community contact on the attitudes of medical students to older people.

Background: Early clinical contact for medical students is an important curricular innovation. We wished to determine if early contact with older people in the second year of a more vertically integrated medical undergraduate programme influenced attitudes to older people and if any effect was synergistic with the effect of an existing fourth year course.

Subjects: Second and fourth-year medical students.