Dr. Brandon Smith of Johns Hopkins Children’s Center talks about dealing with vaccine hesitancy, listening to patients, and addressing concerns.
Parents want what’s best for their children, even if they are harboring skepticism about vaccines for their kids.
Dr. Brandon Smith, the associate medical director of the Harriet Lane Clinic at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, says providers need to keep that in mind when they are dealing with parents or guardians who are skeptical of vaccines.
“Everyone in that room has the child's best interest in mind, so trying to remember that in these conversations can help the provider and the family,” Smith says.
He spoke with Chief Healthcare Executive® and offered tips for doctors and health systems to deal with vaccine hesitancy. (See part of our conversation in this video. The story continues below.)
Providers should ask about where families are getting their information, he says.
More than half of all doctors are encountering a significant amount of misinformation or disinformation from patients, according to a survey released last week by The Physicians Foundation. And doctors say they’re seeing growing hesitancy with vaccines.
Smith stresses the value in “understanding where information is coming from, what sources that families are going to. Are those trusted sources online from organizations that we know of, or are these social media influencers?”
He also endorses a “fact-myth-fact” approach for talking with patients, such as concerns that some patients have about vaccines contributing to autism. A host of studies have found no link, but the mistaken perception persists.
Smith suggests by starting with the fact that vaccines don’t cause autism, but acknowledging a prior study suggested such links, which has since been retracted, and that multiple studies have found vaccines don’t have ties to autism.
“That could be another strategy where providers can start to meet parents where they are and share more information,” Smith says.
Physicians should take the time to listen to what parents are saying, and give them space to speak freely.
“I think this is the moment where we as providers need to stay silent and actively listen. And some families, they will share, immediately, their concerns. Some might just use a broad concern about … ‘We're just not doing vaccines.’ And then I think that does take a little bit more of, asking questions and being a little bit more proactive on the provider side to really dig in.”
Doctors should offer reassurance and stress that they’re not trying to grill patients, but to understand the source of concern.
Smith says his clinic has seen patients that have been initially reluctant, but they later chose to have their kids vaccinated. He says they have found success when parents have shared concerns about specific ingredients in vaccines and doctors have been able to have good conversations.
“We've successfully vaccinated some families by directly understanding the very kind of specific and targeted concern that they might have,” Smith says. “And whether that's at that single visit or … we're having that conversation or at a future visit, I think that longitudinal nature of conversations is something that we've had to get used to in the clinic, and that's where we've had more success over time.”
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