397 Face-to-face interventions not shown to impact on immunisation status

September 26, 2013

PEARLS 397, June, 2013, written by Brian R McAvoy

Clinical question

How effective are face-to-face interventions for informing or educating parents about early childhood vaccination on immunisation uptake and parental knowledge?

Bottom line
Compared with usual care, face-to-face strategies did not consistently improve either immunisation rates or parent knowledge and understanding of vaccination, but the evidence was low to very low quality for these outcomes. The interventions comprised a mix of single-session and multi-session strategies. Only 1 study measured the cost of a face-to-face case management strategy. In this study, the cost of fully immunising one additional child was 8 times the cost of usual care, but the quality of this evidence was very low.

Caveat
No studies measured parents' intention to vaccinate their child or parent experience of intervention, and none of the studies looked at possible harmful outcomes related to the intervention.

The results of this review are limited by the small number of included studies, small number of outcomes measured, and problems with the way the researchers decided who should receive the intervention and with the way outcomes were assessed.

Context
Face-to-face interventions to inform or educate parents about routine childhood vaccination may improve vaccination rates and parental knowledge or understanding of vaccination. Such interventions may describe or explain the practical and logistical factors associated with vaccination, and enable parents to understand the meaning and relevance of vaccination for their family or community.

Cochrane Systematic Review
Kaufman J et al. Face to face interventions for informing or educating parents about early childhood vaccination. Cochrane Reviews, 2013, Issue 5. Art. No.: CD010038.DOI: 10.1002/14651858. CD010038.pub2. This review contains 7 studies involving 2978 participants.

Pearls are an independent product of the Cochrane primary care group and are meant for educational use and not to guide clinical care.