Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy is a public health problem, and a study in the Czech Republic suggests simply informing people that doctors have faith in the new vaccines can make a small difference
The researchers found that about 60 per cent of the participants believed that Czech doctors intended to get vaccinated, while 57 per cent believed that doctors would recommend the jab to patients.
Half the participants were then told the results of a survey the team had performed on 9650 of the Czech Republic’s doctors. The other half were not. In this survey, the researchers had found 90 per cent of the doctors intended to get jabbed and 95 per cent planned to recommend the vaccine to their patients.
“We saw a huge mismatch between what the doctors actually told us and what the population thought,” says Bartoš. The researchers hoped that by correcting this flawed understanding they could encourage participants in their study to overcome any vaccine hesitancy and get vaccinated. The researchers followed the participants for nine months. When the vaccine rollout ramped up in July 2021, those who had been told the doctors’ true beliefs on vaccines were 4 per cent more likely to get vaccinated than those who hadn’t been.
This figure remained stable over the remaining follow-up months. When the participants were asked about their intention to get a booster jab, a similar 4 per cent difference was observed between the two groups.He is unsure whether the results would be repeated in other countries. “It’s hard to say,” he says. “My best guess is that this could work very similarly in those countries where trust in doctors is similar and where there is this prevalence of false balance reporting.
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