Vaccine misinformation has been in the news recently. When someone has concerns or worries about vaccines, the advice that a trusted healthcare professional gives is very influential (Malik et al. Behavioural Interventions for vaccination uptake: A systematic review and meta-analysis).
There is good evidence that when a trusted healthcare professional talks to a person about their vaccine concerns in an empathetic and respectful way, using an approach based on motivational interviewing this increases the uptake of vaccines (see the MOTIVE study, PromoVac study).
You can take the NIO e-learning module “Talking about Immunisations” on www.hseland.ie to find out more.
There are also some tips for communication with someone who is concerned about vaccines in our toolkit to improve childhood vaccine uptake in General Practice.