Medicina Fluminensis, Vol. 52. No. 4., 2016.
Review article
https://doi.org/10.21860/medflum2016_4pec
Vaccination and communication
Gordana Pelčić
orcid.org/0000-0002-3322-1470
; Dom zdravlja Primorsko-goranske županije
Abstract
Vaccination is one of the most effective methods in the prevention of infectious diseases, the last century public health project which accounts for the prevention of 2 to 3 million deaths in children each year worldwide. Despite the fact that vaccination is mandatory in great number of countries and despite the evident epidemiological data that indicate the effectiveness of vaccination which is reflected in the significantly lower incidence of preventable childhood infectious diseases (eradication of smallpox, eradication of polio in the most countries of the world), there is an increasing number of parents who refuse to vaccinate their child which results in increased number of unvaccinated children and occurrence of greater or smaller epidemic of preventable childhood diseases. The reason for increased number of unvaccinated children could be explained by the parents fear of vaccine side effects and by doubts in the effectiveness of vaccination, the inadequate communication with health care workers and wish to receive information from anti vaccination movements. The parents could receive the information from different sources: from public health employers, from the family members, from friends, media, blogs, different Internet sources, and from Internet social network, from different interest groups and from anti-vaccine movements. According to the recent resources, the physicians are still the most preferable source of information from whom the parents want to receive the information about the vaccination. Therefore, the duty of physicians is to know the possible models of communication in order to provide the qualitative information regarding the vaccination. In this paper several possible approaches and communication methods between doctors and parents are mentioned. Analyzing the literature, we have found out that there is no unique and standardized way of communication with vaccine-hesitant parents. Every physician should develop his or her way of communication regarding the situation and interlocutor, knowing the basic communication models and approaches.
Keywords
Communication; Infectious diseases; Information; Vaccination
Hrčak ID:
168384
URI
Publication date:
1.12.2016.
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