Abstract:

In nowadays-social contexts, the family has the responsibility to take care of children well-being, physical development, education. Regarding children health, vaccinations have been decisive tools in the battle against infant morbidity and mortality for decades.

In recent years, a huge disinformation and an extremely harmful and dangerous to the population anti-vaccination campaign has been conducted throughout western nations.

The formation of parents is increasingly configured as an indispensable tool for educating families in responsibility not only towards their own nucleus but also in a social perspective, as parenting is not limited to actions relating to ways of raising children but is such as to entail specific civic liability.

For many decades in Italy and in other European countries, anti-vaccination practices have been spreading, as a reaction to supposed cases of permanent and disabling effects on children that have been attributed to vaccination. Clinicians can play a crucial role in parental decision-making because they are cited by parents as being the most frequent source of immunization information.

In Italy, in the last period, a number of surveys have been conducted to better understand the determinants of vaccination behaviors. Of the Italian regions, the province of Bolzano has the lowest vaccination coverage and for this reason, an analysis of vaccination behavior in this territory is required.

The general objective of the project managed by Free University of Bolzano, conducted in collaboration with the Health Authority of Bolzano, is to identify what the ideas behind this resistance are and what influence doctors and health professionals may have on this lack of confidence in science. In order to achieve the objectives, three different surveys, involving doctors and pediatricians, parents and prospective parents, and younger population (18-24 years old) have been planned. This first survey has already finished. It involved 398 General Practitioners (GP) and pediatricians and information about GP and pediatricians’ beliefs on the safety, importance and utility of vaccines, their trust in the reliability of various sources of information about the benefits and risks of vaccines and their ability to convince parents to vaccinate children were collected.

The second phase will involve co-design with pediatricians of educational projects for parents and educational activities for parents. In this phase, pedagogical paths for parents will be designed, aimed at providing educational counseling, support programs and services offered by expert professionals, capable of providing the necessary assistance for an informed choice on childhood vaccination, in a context based on scientific evidence and skills.

Actually, the only way to counteract incorrect information and lack of knowledge is to intervene decisively with educational programs and campaigns aimed, in particular, at the population of the parents. According to research, educational paths dedicated to new parents, are strategical for addressing vaccine hesitancy.

The pedagogical approach in formal, informal and non-formal educational contexts is functional to promote well-being for the construction of a health community. Educational practice as a care practice can support all phases and activities of the vaccination campaign, its promotion in different age groups, socio-emotional support, welcoming users in close collaboration with health personnel.

Keywords:

Vaccinations, Vaccine Hesitancy, pediatricians, parents, educational counseling, sustainability