PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Tuv, Marit
AU  - Elgersma, Ingeborg Hess
AU  - Furuseth, Ellen
AU  - Holst, Christine
AU  - Helleve, Arnfinn
AU  - Fretheim, Atle
TI  - General practitioner phone calls to improve COVID-19 vaccine uptake among patients at increased risk of severe COVID-19: A randomised trial
AID  - 10.3399/BJGPO.2022.0175
DP  - 2023 Feb 06
TA  - BJGP Open
PG  - BJGPO.2022.0175
4099  - http://bjgpopen.org/content/early/2023/02/06/BJGPO.2022.0175.short
4100  - http://bjgpopen.org/content/early/2023/02/06/BJGPO.2022.0175.full
AB  - 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