Public relations strategies employed by the Ghana Health Service to address COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy: a qualitative inquiry.

Autor: McCarthy RNE; Department of History and Political Studies, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana., Donkoh ET; Screen and Treat Research Group, Center for Research in Applied Biology, School of Sciences, University of Energy and Natural Resources, UENR, P. O. Box 214, Sunyani, Ghana. timmy.donkoh@uenr.edu.gh., Arthur DD; Department of History and Political Studies, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana., Dassah ET; Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health, School of Public Health, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana., Boadu KO; Kumasi South Hospital, Kumasi, Ghana., Otoo JE; Eastern Regional Health Directorate, Ghana Health Service, Koforidua, Ghana., Boadu IWO; Department of Medical Diagnostics, Faculty of Allied Health Sciences, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana., Gyasi SF; Center for Research in Applied Biology, School of Sciences, University of Energy and Natural Resources, UENR, P. O. Box 214, Sunyani, Ghana.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Tropical medicine and health [Trop Med Health] 2023 May 12; Vol. 51 (1), pp. 26. Date of Electronic Publication: 2023 May 12.
DOI: 10.1186/s41182-023-00519-7
Abstrakt: Background: Strategies for developing and advancing good public relations can be recognized in nearly all fields of life without making an exception for the healthcare industry. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, matters of public health have gathered more force. The importance of effective public relations for improving healthcare is highlighted by the position that immediate access to reliable health information should be the hallmark of a just society. However, the strategies available for addressing major threats to the uptake of public health services such as mass vaccination campaigns are not properly studied and documented in the Ghanaian context. This organizational case study explored strategies used by healthcare professionals working with the Ghana Health Service (GHS) to address COVID-19-related vaccine hesitancy in the country.
Methods: We performed a qualitative inquiry with semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted with 25 public health officials of the GHS. The interviews were timed to coincide with the mass deployment of COVID-19 vaccines in four Regions. Participants were recruited through purposive sampling. Data collected included demographic characteristics, perspectives on public relations strategies used in the past year to improve COVID-19 vaccine uptake as well as successes and pitfalls. Thematic analysis was performed with NVIVO software to generate themes from interview transcripts.
Results: Four main themes emerged from the data analysis and these are presented. Healthcare workers perceived vaccine hesitancy to be a threat with the potential to undermine an important strategic organizational goal related to COVID-19 illness. In terms of PR strategies, we determined that a combination of informative, motivational, persuasive and coercive public relations strategies was employed by the Ghana Health Service to address the challenge of vaccine hesitancy. We further found that PR strategies were deployed across both traditional (print, radio, TV) and emerging/social media networks. Officials were optimistic that the strategies would produce results, but were uncertain whether they could attribute current successes or failures to the PR strategies used.
Conclusion: Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, public relations strategies which have been employed by the Ghana Health Service to address vaccine hesitancy are characterized and catalogued. The nature of the audience and PR strategies employed suggests that the effect of these strategies may be short-lived unless they are constantly reinforced by the GHS. These findings show that effective PR strategies exist for addressing vaccine hesitancy in public health practice.
(© 2023. The Author(s).)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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