General practitioner phone calls to improve COVID-19 vaccine uptake among patients at increased risk of severe COVID-19: A randomised trial

Background English media have reported that many unvaccinated individuals took the COVID-19 vaccine after receiving a phone call from their general practitioner (GP).

Aim To determine whether a phone call from GPs to unvaccinated patients at increased risk of severe COVID-19 improves uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Design & setting Randomised trial where 202 participants were allocated to receive a phone call from their GP, and 452 participants were allocated to not get the call. 25 GPs at 11 medical centres in Norway took part. Post-trial focus group discussion with 5 GPs.

Method Participants were sourced from the GPs electronic medical record system, which communicates with the Norwegian Immunisation Registry and can generate a list of the GPs’ unvaccinated patients at increased risk of severe COVID-19.

Results The GPs managed to get in touch with 154 (76%) patients allocated to receiving a phone call. At follow-up (average 7.5 weeks), 8.9% in the intervention group and 5.3% in the control group had been vaccinated (OR 1.72; 95% CI 0.90–3.28). Findings from the focus group discussion suggested the timing of the intervention as a likely key reason for its limited success.

Conclusion We observed an increase in the proportion of patients who took the COVID-19 vaccine in the intervention group, but the difference was smaller than anticipated, and may be a chance finding. The effect of this type of intervention will likely vary across contexts and may have proved more effective if a larger proportion of the population were unvaccinated.

Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier NCT05207137