1. Effects of Social Media on Vaccine Hesitancy
By: Elissa Sillars
Department of Nursing, Masters Entry into Nursing Practice 2019
Figure 1:
Introduction
Vaccine hesitancy is rapidly increasing among parents, causing delay or refusal to vaccinate
Misinformation on the internet/public opinion,parents focus attention on the risks, side effects and negative aspects of vaccines
Disregard the documented benefits creating vaccine adherence
Increased need to use credible sources for parental education
62% of American use the internet for health information most commonly social media
Differ between credible versus non-credible sources,
Relationship between vaccine education and adherence
Findings
Credible Sources of Vaccine Information
Domain system names (DSN)
.edu, .org & .gov
The National Library of Medicine’s Medline Plus (
The Center for Disease Control (CDC) (
The National Network for Immunization Information (NNii) (
The National Institutes of Health (
The Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (
The World Health Organization (WHO) (
Vaxopedia (
*verified as a trusted source through the Immunization Action Coalition (IAC).
Vaccine Safety Net (
Every Child by Two (ECBT)
The American Academy of Pediatrics(AAP) (
Social Media/ Internet
Parental decision & views on vaccination are influenced by radio, television, and social networks, including celebrities.
Social media is prevalent in society, parents trust the information seen in a link on Facebook, Instagram, or in a tweet.
Users can generate own content vaccine controversy.
“Emotionally charged data” increased hesitancy
Ultimately, this contributes to the spread of misinformation and prevalence of non-credible sources encompassing the internet. See Figures 2 & 3
Health Care Professional Distrust
Use of social media/ internet as a credible source of information, poses a major problem, parents, discredit recommendations by primary care provider. (Figure 2)
Hard for providers to compete with information, not enough time spent to counter misinformation and provide accurate information
Build trusting relationship
Interventions
Educate on credible sources: parents want information on ways to research vaccines
“Facebook Initiative” -Remove false information from Facebook and Instagram
Increase provider/ nurse education
Methods
Integrative literature review used to identify various sources of education and information parents receive on vaccinations either by the clinician or outside sources such as social media.
Assess parental adherence to the childhood vaccination schedule based on the education received.
Sources of education: clinicians, peers, internet search engines (e.g. Google), social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram Twitter), news articles and newspapers, magazines, and asses the credibility of the sources
Credibility of sources were determined based on origin of information. See Figure 1
Nursing Implications
Society places trust, dependence in nursing care
Nurses should provide more vaccine education to parents
Nurses should be aware of the impact social media has on parents
Nurses constantly assess and should utilize assessment to determine reason for vaccine hesitancy
Appropriate communicant strategies can be used to cater to specific needs of parents” gentle, persuasive step-wise manner”
Figure 3:
Figure 2:
Conceptual Framework
Theory of Reasoned Action/Planned Behavior
Regardless of opinion or viewpoint, vaccines are a choice
Non credible sources like social media influence this choice and reinforce reason for decisions and actions
Regardless of information researched, some parents already have their behavior planned and is difficult to change this behavior.
Seek validation in concerns and disproval w/o questioning validity. .