Mind the gap: Concordance between perceptions regarding vaccination as declared by patients and their evaluation by their general practitioner

Abstract

BackgroundThe high level of vaccine hesitancy reported in the French population may lead general practitioners to anticipate difficult discussions on this topic. We aimed to assess the extent to which general practitioners’ evaluation of their patients’ vaccine hesitancy was correlated with the real vaccine hesitancy expressed by these patients. MethodsThe study was based on two brief paper questionnaires completed in private by the general practitioner and the patient at the beginning of a medical appointment: one for the physician to evaluate on three quantitative and non-graduated visual scales (then analysed as a 0–100 scale) their patients’ perceptions regarding vaccine safety, vaccine efficacy and ‘being in favour of vaccination’; and one for the patient to express their perceptions for the same three axes using the same scales. ResultsOverall, 31 physicians participated in the study, with 540 physician-patient pairs being included. The physicians’ evaluation of patient perceptions was more positive when the physician was male (vs female), when the patient was male (vs female) and when both were males (vs both females). The median differences (in absolute values) between the physician evaluations and the patient perceptions were between 9 and 11 (on the 0–100 scale) for the three axes (vaccine safety, vaccine efficacy and ‘being in favour’). A correlation was observed between the physicians’ evaluation and the patients’ declaration (Kendall test: vaccine efficacy: tau = 0.199, p < 0.001; vaccine safety: tau = 0.234, p < 0.001; being in favour of vaccination: tau = 0.365, p < 0.001). Physicians correctly classified 83.4 % of the patients with high perceptions of vaccine safety and efficacy (>75/100 for both scales) but only 54.5 % of those with low perceptions (<75/100 for both scales). ConclusionPhysicians tend to correctly identify patients with the most favourable perceptions about vaccination but not those with the least favourable perceptions.