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Purpose To investigate parents’ views about new vaccines, we surveyed the attitudes and awareness toward immunization program among parents of children younger than 14 years in Taiwan. Methods Parents of children were invited to complete a questionnaire in a tertiary referral medical center in Kaoshiung, southern Taiwan from 2006 to 2008. A total of 535 questionnaires were completed. We used descriptive data for the analysis of parents’ views and attitudes toward the current vaccination program in Taiwan. Results Of the 535 respondents, most parents (93%) did not think the current vaccination program was satisfactory. Few (approximately 8%) preferred self-paid vaccines. About 63% of parents believed that the new (self-paid) vaccines provided more protection, whereas 48% deemed them too expensive. The most popular reason for preferring the new vaccines was greater protection (73%). One-half of parents considered the new vaccines to be expensive. Regarding parental awareness of side effect of vaccination, fever was the most well known and of greatest concern (91%). Most parents (68%) had good awareness of conjugated pneumococcal vaccines, and only few (13%) had heard of the human papilloma virus vaccine. Most parental information of vaccines came from pamphlets at the hospital (56%). Conclusion We found the awareness of parents about new vaccines to be insufficient. They also considered the new vaccines to be expensive.

Background There has been concern over the effect of vigorous bubbling on the delivery pressure during the operation of the bubble nasal continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) system. We investigated the relationship between intra-tubing pressure changes and flow rates in a closed bubble CPAP system in vitro . Methods Using an experimental ( in vitro ) model, the distal connecting tube of the CPAP system was immersed under the water seal to a depth of 5 cm. Sixteen different flow rates, ranging from 2 L/min to 20 L/min, were tested. The procedure was repeated 10 times at each flow rate, and the intra-tubing pressure was recorded. Results The intra-tubing pressure within the model increased as the air flow rates were adjusted from 2 L/min to 20 L/min. The relationship was represented by the following equation, pressure (cmH 2 O) = 5.37 + 0.15 × flow rate (L/min) ( R 2 = 0.826, p Conclusion These results demonstrated that the intra-tubing pressure in a bubble CPAP system was highly correlated with flow rate in vitro .