Physician Attitudes and Preferences About Combined Tdap Vaccines for Adolescents

Adolescent Tdap Vaccine Use Among Primary Care Physicians

“…Though our analysis demonstrated minimal differences between respondents and nonrespondents with regards to several demographic characteristics, physicians who responded to the survey may be more interested in vaccination issues or have other unmeasured characteristics that differ from nonrespondents that could affect interpretation of the data. However, our results are bolstered by studies of other vaccines that demonstrate similar specialty-based differences in provider attitudes about vaccination [11,18]. Moreover, the response rate and characteristics of participants in our survey are comparable with that of other published studies of physician behavior [19][20][21][22].…”

“…Reasons for this, and the other, specialty-based differences are unclear, but could be due to differences in access to up-todate information, litigation concerns, practice environment or underlying beliefs about the importance of adolescent vaccination or preventions of pertussis. What these differences do point to, however, is a persistence of the disparities in immunization practices that had been identified in a previous study on physicians' opinions of this vaccine [11]. Although actual vaccination rates by medical specialty were not measured directly, these results imply there is an ongoing need to enhance motivation for recommending adolescent Tdap, and to educate providers about integrating Tdap with other childhood and adolescent vaccines, particularly among family practitioners.…”

“…We anticipated a similar age-based preference among family practitioners in our study for recommending Tdap, yet reported recommendation practices were similar between the two adolescent age groups for this specialty. This finding, together with the fact that a higher proportion of family physicians reported routinely recommending Tdap to their adolescent patients than had been reported previously as routinely administering Td [11], suggest that although there are ongoing specialty-based variations in immunization practice, family practitioners overall are increasingly following ACIP guidelines on adolescent Tdap vaccination. Aside from medical specialty, stocking Tdap in the practice was the only other factor found in this study to be independently associated with routinely recommending Tdap to adolescents.…”

“…A previous study that was conducted to inform the ACIP in their deliberations regarding adolescent Tdap indicated only moderate support among physicians for replacing the Td booster with Tdap during adolescence [11]. Family practitioners had less enthusiasm for this vaccine than pediatricians, and the study concluded that efforts to increase physician awareness of the burden of pertussis among adolescents and motivation for administering Tdap to this age group was needed.…”

Effectiveness of Decision Support for Families, Clinicians, or Both on HPV Vaccine Receipt

“…12,[14][15][16][17] Additionally, adolescent attendance at preventive visits declines with age, limiting opportunities for vaccination. 18,19 Delays in initiating HPV vaccination adversely impact girls' health. Although infection usually clears, one-quarter of girls ages 14 to 19 years are infected with at least 1 strain of HPV, and serotypes associated with a high-risk of developing cervical, anal, and other genital cancers are common.…”