Cyprus Turkish Journal of Psychiatry & Psychology Vol.5 Issue.4

Doi:10.35365/ctjpp.23.4.08

RESEARCH ARTICLE / ARAŞTIRMA YAZISI

Persuasive Solutions for Addressing the Impact of Internet Media on Childhood Vaccine Rejection

Çocukluk Aşılarının Reddedilmesinde İnternet Medyasının Etkilerine Yönelik İkna Amaçlı Çözüm Önerileri

Dursun Yılmaz1, Murat Sezgin2

Abstract:

While vaccine hesitancy continues to grow as a global threat to public health, healthcare professionals working to protect community health are engaged in various efforts to mitigate this threat. Among the reasons parents refuse childhood vaccines, many underlying factors are attributed to medical, religious, cultural, and environmental influences. One of the contributing factors to the rejection of childhood vaccines is the information disseminated through mass media, particularly on internet-based platforms, especially on social networks. Parents often turn to social media channels to access information about vaccines. The undeniable influence of social media platforms on parents’ acceptance or rejection of vaccines cannot be underestimated. This study examines how parents who refuse childhood vaccines are influenced by mass media, particularly internet-based social media networks, and discusses the efforts and solutions proposed by healthcare professionals to convince parents. The research was initiated with the approval of the Uşak University Ethics Committee under decision number 2021-104 dated May 6, 2021. Field research was conducted through qualitative interviews using semi-structured questionnaires. In this study, employing a phenomenological design, a snowball sampling model was preferred, and the data were analyzed using thematic analysis. At the conclusion of the study, Family Health Center (FHC) employees stated that mass media, especially social media, and the misinformation circulating on the internet have contributed to the increase in vaccine hesitancy. FHC employees expressed the need for regulating internet media (social media, blogs, personal pages, websites) to combat information pollution and emphasized the importance of implementing legal procedures and penalties to prevent mass manipulation resulting from the dissemination of messages by influencers.

Keywords: Vaccine rejection, social media, persuasion, communication, healthcare workers

* It was produced from Dursun Yılmaz’s doctoral thesis titled ‘Examination of the Persuasion Strategies of Family Health Center Employees towards Parents Who Refuse Vaccination and a Model Proposal’.

1Ph.D. Candidate, Uşak University, Institute of Social Sciences, Department of Communication Sciences, Uşak- Türkiye, [email protected], Orcid id:  0000-0001-6161-3482

2Prof. Dr., Uşak University, Faculty of Communication, Department of Public Relations and Advertising, Uşak- Türkiye, [email protected], Orcid id: ‪ 0000-0003-2200-3301

Address of Correspondence/Yazışma Adresi: Dursun Yılmaz, Uşak University, Institute of Social Sciences, Department of Communication Sciences, Uşak- Türkiye, [email protected]

Date of Received/Geliş Tarihi: 13.05.2023, Date of Revision/Düzeltme Tarihi: 13.09.2023, Date of Acceptance/Kabul Tarihi: 10.12.2023, Date of Online Publication/Çevirimiçi Yayın Tarihi: 15.12.2023

Citing/Referans Gösterimi: Yılmaz, D. & Sezgin, M. (2023). Persuasive Solutions for Addressing the Impact of Internet Media on Childhood Vaccine Rejection. Cyprus Turkish Journal of Psychiatry & Psychology, 5(4): 353-360

© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Cyprus Mental Health Institute / Cyprus Turkish Journal of Psychiatry and Psychology (www.ktppdergisi.com). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/