Public awareness, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors regarding the role of pharmacists as immunizers

ABSTRACT

Vaccine coverage is below desired levels in Canada, despite National Advisory Committee on Immunization recommendations. One solution to improve coverage is to offer vaccines in pharmacies. We explore the awareness, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of the general public in four communities in Nova Scotia (NS) and New Brunswick (NB) about the changing role of pharmacists as immunizers. Adult members of the public were invited to complete an online survey through advertisements in print and online, and through e-mail lists at local universities. Immunization status among participants (n = 985) varied across vaccines with slightly more than one-half of the participants (51.8%) reporting receipt of a seasonal influenza vaccine last year, 38.0% reporting receipt of the meningococcal C or ACWY vaccine, and 77.7% reporting receipt of the pertussis vaccine. Despite variable self-reported receipt of vaccines, the pervasive belief that participants were not at risk of getting vaccine-preventable diseases, and a lack of awareness about which vaccines are recommended for adults, participants in this study held vaccine-positive beliefs. Participants, especially those who had previously been vaccinated in a pharmacy (39.0%), were supportive of the inclusion of pharmacists as immunizers although nearly one-half of the participants would feel more comfortable getting vaccinated by a pharmacist if another practitioner recommended it to them. While cost threatens to be a barrier to pharmacists as immunizers, this study suggests that they are well-positioned to improve vaccine coverage and to communicate recommendations and other vaccine-related information to the public.

KEYWORDS:

• Immunization
• vaccination
• vaccination coverage
• pharmacists
• health, knowledge, attitudes
• practice
• public health

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the Canadian Immunization Research Network (CIRN), GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals SA, and Sanofi Pasteur Limited for funding this research. The authors would like to thank the other members of the Improve ACCESS Team for their contributions to the overall study.¹ We would also like to acknowledge Heather Sampson, Jeff Scott, Joanne Langley, Kathryn Slater, Sarah DeCoutere, and Susan Bowles for reviewing our survey instrument for content validity.

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

The authors declare that there are no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper other than those indicated in Funding.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website at https://doi.org/10.1080/21645515.2021.1913963.

Ethics

The research protocol was approved by Research Ethics Boards at St. Francis Xavier University (#22895), the Nova Scotia Health Authority (#1021559), and Horizon Health (RS 2016-2351).

Notes

1. Karina Top, Joanne Langley, Susan Bowles, Julie Bettinger, Nancy Waite, Kathryn Slayter, Fawziah Lalji, Janusz Kaczorowski, Beth Taylor and Shelly McNeil.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) through the Canadian Immunization Research Network (CIRN), and through Collaborative Research Agreements with GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals SA, and Sanofi Pasteur Limited. All supporters were provided the opportunity to review this manuscript for factual accuracy, but the authors are solely responsible for final content and interpretation. The authors received no financial support or other form of compensation related to the development of the manuscript.