%0 Journal Article
%T Reporting Vaccine Complications: What Do Obstetricians and Gynecologists Know About the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System?
%A L. O. Eckert
%A B. L. Anderson
%A B. Gonik
%A J. Schulkin
%J Infectious Diseases in Obstetrics and Gynecology
%D 2013
%I Hindawi Publishing Corporation
%R 10.1155/2013/285257
%X Background. Obstetrician-gynecologists are increasingly called upon to be vaccinators as an essential part of a womanĄŻs primary and preventive health care. Despite the established safety of vaccines, vaccine adverse events may occur. A national Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) is a well-established mechanism to track adverse events. However, we hypothesized that many obstetrician-gynecologists are naive to the role and use of VAERS. Methods. We devised a ten-question survey to a sample of ACOG fellows to assess their knowledge and understanding of VAERS. We performed descriptive and frequency analysis for each of the questions and used one-way analysis of variance for continuous and chi-squared for categorical variables. Results. Of the 1000 fellows who received the survey, 377 responded. Only one respondent answered all nine knowledge questions correctly, and 9.2% of physicians had used VAERS. Older physicians were less familiar with VAERS in general and with the specific objectives of VAERS in particular ( ). Conclusions. Obstetrician-gynecologist familiarity with VAERS is lacking. Only when the obstetrician-gynecologist is completely knowledgeable regarding standard vaccine practices, including the availability and use of programs such as VAERS, will providers be functioning as competent and complete vaccinators. 1. Introduction Vaccination against vaccine-preventable diseases is an essential component of womenĄŻs primary and preventive health care. To provide the best care for our patients, obstetrician-gynecologists are increasingly called to be vaccinators. The indications and types of vaccines recommended for our patients are expanding [1]. Hence, the possibility of adverse events will also increase. A system is in place in this country to track adverse events following vaccine administration: the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). VAERS is a voluntary reporting system coadministered by the Centers for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration. Established in 1990, VAERS monitors vaccine safety and accepts adverse event (AE) reports following receipt of any US licensed vaccine. However, because reporting to VAERS is not specifically mandated, utilization of VAERS is necessarily dependent on familiarity with the existence of this system. We hypothesized that experience and familiarity with VAERS are not common among obstetrician-gynecologists. To test this hypothesis and determine more specific knowledge deficits, we conducted a survey to assess the familiarity of practicing obstetrician-gynecologists with
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/idog/2013/285257/