Department of Health Communication, School of Public Health, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.
Patient Educ Couns. 2017 Oct;100(10):1859-1866. doi: 10.1016/j.pec.2017.04.013. Epub 2017 May 13.
In Japan, the HPV vaccination rate has sharply fallen to nearly 0% due to a series of sensational media reports of adverse events. Online anti-HPV-vaccination activists often warn readers of the vaccine's dangers. We aimed to examine distribution and readability of pro-and anti-vaccination online messages with relation to these authors' professional expertise.
We conducted online searches via two major search engines. Identified sites were classified as "anti," "pro," or "neutral" depending on their claims, and "health professional" or "non-health professional" depending on their authors' expertise. Readability was determined using a validated measure of Japanese readability. Statistical analysis was conducted using two-way analysis of variance and Tukey's test.
Of the total 270 sites analyzed, up to 137 (50.7%) were deemed anti- and 101 (37.4%) pro-HPV-vaccination. Of the pro-vaccination sites 71% were written by health professionals. Anti-vaccination messages were found to be considerably easier to read than pro-vaccination ones; both among those by health professionals and non-health professionals.
Our findings substantiate concern that the anti messages may serve to prolong the HPV vaccination crisis.
We recommend that health professionals use readability assessment tools and improve the text for easier reading if necessary.
在日本，由于一系列有关不良事件的轰动性媒体报道，HPV 疫苗接种率急剧下降至接近 0%。在线反 HPV 疫苗活动人士经常警告读者疫苗的危险。我们旨在研究与这些作者专业知识相关的赞成和反对疫苗接种的在线信息的分布和可读性。
我们通过两个主要搜索引擎进行了在线搜索。根据其主张，将识别出的网站分为“反”、“赞成”或“中立”，根据作者的专业知识分为“卫生专业人员”或“非卫生专业人员”。使用日本可读性的验证度量来确定可读性。使用双向方差分析和 Tukey 检验进行统计分析。
在分析的总共 270 个网站中，多达 137 个（50.7%）被认为是反 HPV 疫苗接种的，101 个（37.4%）是赞成 HPV 疫苗接种的。赞成疫苗接种的网站中有 71%是由卫生专业人员撰写的。发现反疫苗接种信息比赞成疫苗接种信息更容易阅读；无论是在卫生专业人员还是非卫生专业人员撰写的信息中都是如此。
我们的研究结果证实了人们的担忧，即反疫苗接种信息可能会延长 HPV 疫苗接种危机。
我们建议卫生专业人员使用可读性评估工具，如果有必要，改善文本以提高可读性。
