Improving Conversations with COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitant Patients: Action research to support family physicians

Abstract

Societal and operational challenges familiar to family medicine have been given new form and urgency by the COVID-19 pandemic. Vaccination delivery and efforts to counter vaccine hesitancy have become focal issues for family medicine teams. Conducting action research, our team developed an interactive web-based Guide to improve clinical conversations around a broad range of vaccine hesitancies as presented by patients. The Guide was co-designed with family physicians in a process that included validation interviews and role-play interviews. The validation interviews sought to understand the pragmatic realities of vaccine hesitancy in family medicine clinical practice relative to relevant psychological theories. The role-play interviews drew out conversational strategies and advice from family physicians. The principles of Motivational Interviewing - an evidence-based approach to vaccine hesitancy conversations that supplements information deficit approaches - were then used to co-design the content and presentation of the Guide. User counts, stakeholder engagement, and web-based analytics indicate the Guide is being used extensively by family physicians. Formal evaluation of the Guide is presently underway.