Pediatria pre prax 6/2017

Parent-pediatrician communication about vaccines – changes, needs and strategies

Over the past few years, vaccination rates in Slovakia have been steadily declining. There are multiple causes: changes in the socio-cultural establishment, lack of trust towards state institutions, freely available medical information; and, primarily, parental fear for their children and their concerns about vaccine safety. Despite societal changes, the opinions of paediatricians still play one of the most important roles in parental vaccination-related informed decision-making. In this article, we focus on the reasons behind, from a medical perspective, seemingly irrational, decision-making about vaccinating their children, zoom in on problem areas that paediatricians encounter during vaccine-related communication with parents, and describe select communication strategies recommended for paediatricians in the psychological literature.

Keywords: vaccination, pediatricians, parents, parental needs, communication strategies