Increasing Appropriate Vaccination: Clinic-based Client Education When Used Alone

Community Preventive Services Taskforce Task Force Finding and Rationale Statement (2015)

The Community Guide - N/A

Go to publication

Evidence Categories

• Care setting: Secondary Care
• Care setting: Other settings
• Care setting: Primary care
• Population group: Older adults
• Intervention: Health literacy
• Outcome: Change in vaccination rates

Type of Evidence

Systematic Review

Aims

"This report aimed to determine the effectiveness of clinic-based client education interventions when implemented alone in increasing vaccination rates or reducing rates of vaccine preventable illness."

Findings

The authors state:

"This Task Force finding is based on evidence from a Community Guide systematic review completed in 2011 (4 studies with 6 study arms, search period 1980-2009) combined with more recent evidence (1 study, search period 2009-2012). Based on the combined evidence, the Task Force reaffirms its finding of insufficient evidence. The combined Task Force review included five studies. Four studies with six study arms providing a common measurement of change in vaccination rates. Although the median change in vaccination rates was an increase of 10 percentage points (IQI: 3 to 19 percentage points), results were dominated by findings from three related study arms focused on increasing pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccinations among older adult patients in one clinical setting. Changes in vaccination rates from the other three study arms were inconsistent and smaller in magnitude. The final study did not evaluate changes in vaccination rates, and found only a very small change in the proportion of tetanus booster doses administered with the use of an audiovisual message in clinic waiting areas."

Conclusions

The authors state:

"The Community Preventive Services Task Force finds insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness of clinic-based client education when implemented alone in increasing vaccination rates or reducing rates of vaccine preventable illness. Four of the included studies provided sufficient evidence of effectiveness but were limited to immunizations for pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine among older adults with very low baseline coverage. The Task Force finding reflects concerns about the intervention's applicability to a broader range vaccinations, populations, and clinic-based settings."