The associations between medical, allied and complementary medicine practitioner visits and childhood vaccine uptake

Publication date: Available online 3 January 2018
Source:Vaccine
Author(s): Jane E. Frawley, Hope Foley, Erica McIntyre
BackgroundVaccination rates have remained steady for a number of years in Australia, however geographical areas of lower vaccine coverage remains a day-to-day challenge. The study explores parental attitudes, beliefs and intentions in relation to vaccination and examines the early effects of recent No Jab No Pay legislation.MethodsA national survey of was conducted, using an online questionnaire. Parents from all states in Australia with at least one child aged <6 years were invited to participate.ResultsA total of 429 parents participated in the study. The substantial majority of participants reported having their youngest child's vaccination status up to date (n = 401, 93.5%). A child's vaccinations were more likely to be up to date if they had consulted a paediatrician in the previous 12-months (OR 5.01; 95%CI 1.05, 23.92; p = .043). Conversely they were less likely to be vaccinated if they were influenced by information from a complementary medicine (CM) practitioner (OR 0.03; 95%CI 0.01, 0.15; p < .001) or had visited a CM-practitioner (OR 0.09; 95%CI 0.02, 0.33; p < .001) in the previous 12-months. A total of 2.6% of parents had immunised their child as a result of the No Jab No Pay legislation, while 3.9% stated the legislation had no effect, and 1.2% said it had made them less likely to vaccinate. A further 1.2% of parents stated they are considering vaccination as a result of the legislative changes.ConclusionParents who have not vaccinated their children appear to trust non-mainstream sources of information such as CM-practitioners. Further research is required to determine how to manage the challenges and opportunities of CM-practitioners as a source of vaccine information.



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