Abstract
The decreased rate of children’s vaccination has resulted in outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases, and vaccination hesitancy is being brought about by the uncertainty caused by the continuing COVID-19 pandemic. With this study, we aimed to assess the efficacy of a child vaccination chatbot based on changes in variables such as vaccination information, motivation, self-efficacy, and vaccination behavioral intention. From 30 January to 15 February 2020, 65 parents raising children ≤35 months old who were expected to be vaccinated within three months participated in the trial through online recruitment. Participants were randomly assigned to either the experimental group (n = 34) or the control group (n = 31) and were followed up with over a period of 12 weeks. During this period, both groups of participants were provided with vaccination schedule reminders. The experimental group were additionally provided with vaccination-related information and motivation boosters by a chatbot (real-time consultation messenger service); the control group was provided the same information by brochure. Comparing both groups, the experimental group that used the chatbot scored higher on vaccination information, motivation, self-efficacy, and vaccination behavioral intention than the control group. This suggests that the chatbot provided useful and timely information to parents, increasing vaccination motivation, self-efficacy, and vaccination rates. This study provides evidence that chatbots are useful tools to encourage immunization through the provision of reminders and real-time consultation messenger services during the global health crisis and beyond.
Highlights
Vaccination is considered the safest and most effective way to protect children from contagious diseases
The chatbot developed for this study provides information on child vaccination with 1:1 customization, a feature enabled by building an algorithm appropriate for each child by considering their age without the need to expose the counseling content to others
A typical question asked regarding the Turing test was: “Having used the chatbot for 12 weeks, did you feel like you were talking to a real person?” About 25.71% of respondents said that they felt like they were talking to a real person
Summary
Vaccination is considered the safest and most effective way to protect children from contagious diseases. The American Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported that the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to a decrease in overall child vaccination rates [3]. According to national data from the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, between the first quarters of 2019 and 2020, there was a decrease in pediatric vaccine administration, likely influenced by COVID-19 [4]. To prevent such declines, it is essential to provide timely vaccination-related information to parents, reminding them of the vital need to protect their children against serious vaccine-preventable diseases, even as the COVID-19 pandemic continues
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