Vaccine hesitancy: analysis of posts published in an anti-vaccination group on Facebook®
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5216/ree.v27.77267Keywords:
Vaccination Refusal, Child Care, Immunization, Pediatric NursingAbstract
Objectives: to analyze posts published in an anti-vaccination group on the social network Facebook®. Methods: this is an exploratory descriptive study. The corpus for analysis consisted of posts made from January to December 2020 in a Facebook® group entitled “Vacinas: O lado obscuro das Vacinas” (Vaccines: The Dark Side of Vaccines). Two independent researchers conducted the analysis. The posts were categorized according to type of material, post, comments, and topic. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the results. Results: the sample consisted of 545 posts, of which 44.9% (n = 370) were categorized as “secondary posts”, i.e., they reproduced information from other websites. The majority of posts (n = 344; 63.1%) were shared on the group participants’ personal pages. The most frequently discussed topic in posts about vaccines, excluding topics related to the COVID-19 pandemic, was “vaccines cause disease” (n = 117; 12.4%), followed by topics related to questions about the “credibility/veracity of vaccines” (n = 99; 10.5%) and phenomena presented as “adverse reactions” (n = 98; 10.4%). Conclusions: analysis of posts revealed a tendency to spread misinformation and question the efficacy and safety of vaccines, propagating news that incites the anti-vaccine movement.
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