Pharmacists’ approaches to vaccination consultations in Switzerland: a qualitative study comparing the roles of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) and biomedicine

BACKGROUND: Many community pharmacies in Switzerland provide complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) approaches in addition to providing biomedical services, and a few pharmacies specialise in CAM. A common perception is that CAM providers are sceptical towards, or opposed to, vaccination. OBJECTIVES: Key objectives of this study are to examine the potential roles of biomedically oriented and CAM-specialised pharmacists regarding vaccine counselling and to better understand the association between vaccine hesitancy and CAM. DESIGN: We conducted semistructured, qualitative interviews. Transcripts were coded and analysed using thematic analysis. Interview questions were related to: type of pharmaceutical care practised, views on CAM and biomedicine, perspectives on vaccination, descriptions of vaccination consultations in community pharmacies and views on vaccination rates. SETTING: Qualitative interviews in three language regions of Switzerland (German, French and Italian). PARTICIPANTS: We interviewed 18 pharmacists (N=11 biomedically oriented, N=7 CAM specialised). RESULTS: Pharmacist participants expressed generally positive attitudes towards vaccination. Biomedically oriented pharmacists mainly advised customers to follow official vaccination recommendations but rarely counselled vaccine-hesitant customers. CAM-specialised pharmacists were not as enthusiastic advocates of the Swiss vaccination recommendations as the biomedically oriented pharmacists we interviewed. Rather, they considered that each customer should receive individualised, nuanced vaccination advice so that customers can reach their own decisions. CAM-specialised pharmacists described how mothers in particular preferred getting a second opinion when they felt insufficiently advised by biomedically oriented paediatricians. CONCLUSIONS: Vaccination counselling in community pharmacies represents an additional option to customers who have unmet vaccination consultation needs and who seek reassurance from healthcare professionals (HCPs) other than physicians. By providing individualised vaccination counselling to vaccine-hesitant customers, CAM-specialised pharmacists are likely meeting specific needs of vaccine-hesitant customers. As such, research and implementation efforts should more systematically involve pharmacists as important actors in vaccination provision. CAM-specialised pharmacists particularly should not be neglected as they are important HCPs who counsel vaccine-hesitant customers.