Assessing Vaccine Hesitancy Among Pediatric Healthcare Providers.

Abstract

Vaccine compliance has fallen short of national and international targets, generating preventable disease outbreaks. While vaccine hesitancy in the general public is a factor in under-vaccination, vaccine hesitancy among healthcare providers remains an underrecognized obstacle to pediatric vaccine completion. The aim of this quality improvement study was to assess provider attitudes and practices regarding vaccine efficacy, safety, adverse effects, and recommendations. To assess for changes in their vaccine confidence, a convenience sample of three physicians and seven advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) from a pediatric primary care clinic anonymously completed a self-administered survey, participated in an educational intervention, and then completed another survey. All eight providers denied personal vaccine hesitancy. However, one APRN did not fully vaccinate their child due to a medical exemption and another APRN reported concerns about influenza vaccine efficacy. While the mean confidence score for educating vaccine-hesitant parents increased from pre (8.75) to post intervention (9.13), the increase was not statistically significant. The pre-intervention survey affirmed the presence of parental vaccine hesitancy, but not provider vaccine hesitancy. Further study is needed to identify and address provider vaccine hesitancy to improve their vaccine confidence and, ultimately, pediatric vaccine completion.