Providing educational interventions to pharmacists can influence the nature of conversations about pneumococcal vaccination among older adults, according to a new study published in the Journal of the American Pharmacists Association. 1
The Public Health Agency of Canada has a vaccination coverage target of 80%, but only 58% of Canadians over the age of 65 have been vaccinated against pneumococcal pneumonia.
Pharmacist education can positively impact patient counseling regarding immunization in older adults. |Image credit: C. Davids/peopleimages.com – Stock.adobe.com
The researchers wanted to understand the reasons behind patients’ hesitancy to get vaccinated. They sought to investigate conversations about pneumococcal vaccines between pharmacists and patients.
Investigators randomly selected pharmacies to receive an educational package aimed at improving knowledge, skills, and abilities to promote pneumococcal vaccination. The educational toolkit includes patient screening tips, patient eligibility decision trees, consent forms, vaccine safety posters, vaccine comparison charts, frequently asked questions, and several document templates. Ta. Pharmacists watched a 1-hour video that provided an overview of the study and all educational materials.
During the management phase, pharmacists provided routine care. The intervention phase occurred after pharmacists received the education package. Researchers used weekly scorecards to assess pharmacist-patient conversations, including number of conversations, length of each conversation, and reasons for vaccine refusal. The researchers used a chi-square test to compare the time taken for the conversation and the reasons reported by patients for refusing the vaccine in the control and intervention phases.
The study included 656 pharmacist-patient conversations from 13 pharmacies in Alberta, Canada. Of these conversations, 271 occurred during the control phase and 385 occurred during the intervention phase.
Read more: Vaccine effectiveness and uptake are important for older adults when at high risk
After receiving the education package, pharmacist-patient conversation leading to the vaccine decreased. 65% of the conversations in the control phase lasted less than 20 minutes compared to 88% of the conversations in the intervention phase. The length of conversations that led to vaccine refusal was similar in the control and intervention phases, with 70% and 76% lasting less than 5 minutes, respectively.
In both phases of the study, the most common reason for vaccine refusal was “I needed more time to think about the vaccine,” which accounted for 31% of all refusals in the control phase and 36% in the intervention phase. However, during the intervention phase, few patients cited “I don’t have time to get vaccinated today” or “I felt there was no benefit” as reasons for refusing vaccination. During the intervention phase, compared to the control group, more patients refused vaccination due to the “cost barrier,” and more patients “wanted to talk to their families.”
There were no significant changes in patients’ reasons for refusal between the control period and the intervention period, but they included “fear of adverse events,” “lack of awareness of sensitivity,” and “want to consult their primary care physician.”
The researchers noted that the scorecard cannot track pneumococcal vaccinations given in different locations or at different times. Therefore, we were unable to accurately report how vaccination rates changed after the pharmacist-patient conversation.
In future studies, the researchers plan to evaluate the most useful components of the educational toolkit so they can refine the program.
Read more: Immunization Resource Center
Reference 1. Ramrattan D, Nagy D, Eurich D, Hughes C, Lau D, Simpson S. Changing the conversation: Enabling community pharmacists to address pneumococcal vaccine hesitancy. J Am Pharm Assoc. 2024;64:e102202. doi:10.1016/j.japh.2024.102202
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