The report also emphasizes the potential effectiveness of personalizing vaccine conversations by having doctors share their own experience, such as the fact that they vaccinated themselves, their children, and/or their grandchildren.
“Parents often are more likely to be persuaded by stories and anecdotes about the successes of vaccines,” the authors write. “Personal examples of children who were sick with vaccine-preventable illnesses can be much more effective than simply reading the numbers of children infected with a disease each year.”
The report also offers several suggestions for reducing the pain from administering vaccinations: administering vaccines quickly without aspirating; saving the most painful injection for last; holding the child upright; providing tactile stimulation; breastfeeding or providing sweet solutions and topical anesthetics after administration; and using distraction, such as deep breathing, pinwheels, or toys to decrease children’s pain and anxiety.
But the bottom line is that pediatricians have one key message they must communicate to parents, the report states: “The clear message parents should hear is that vaccines are safe and effective, and serious disease can occur if your child and family are not immunized.”