(gentle music)
Hi, everyone.
I'm here with Vicky Ruffing,
nurse and director of patient education
from the Johns Hopkins Arthritis Center
to talk about a really important topic,
which is barriers to immunizations
in patients with rheumatic disease,
and she recently published an article
on this topic, and so thank you so much, Vicky,
for joining us--
You're welcome.
To talk about this important work.
I'd like to start by first talking about
why immunizations are so important,
in particular in patients with rheumatic diseases.
Patients with rheumatic disease, as you know,
have a compromised immune system,
which means they are not as well-adapted
to be able to fight off any type of viruses,
flu virus for example, that would come their way.
So what we are trying to do with vaccines
is obviously give our patients the very best
defense that we can.
It's important for all patients,
but especially our patients because they can be
a little bit more susceptible to any virus
that's coming down the road.
What did you notice happening in the clinic
and in the literature that prompted you
to look at this issue more closely?
Well, I think the barrier is that
really we have a hard time with many adults
receiving vaccines, but with our patients
with a rheumatic disease, they have some
preconceived myths, if you will,
as to what a vaccine might mean for them.
So for example, patients feel like,
"Oh my gosh, if I get the flu vaccine,
"I'm gonna come down with flu,
"whereas if I'm washing my hands and being diligent,
"I may not come down with flu."
Okay, so then in thinking about risks
versus benefits, what were the major concerns
that patients had that prevented them
from getting vaccinations?
Well the risk of not getting a vaccination
is that patients with rheumatic diseases,
patients that are in our arena,
will often get a worse case of flu.
So their bodies are not really tuned well enough
to be able to fight off flu,
so the outcomes can be much worse
than they would be with the general population.
So what we've seen is that patients
with a rheumatic disease often end up hospitalized
as a result of flu, whereas your average adult
may not be, so that's one issue.
One of the risks of vaccines is you may get
a localized reaction.
That is pretty much it.
Some people get a sore arm.
Some people may get a very low grade fever,
around 99.1, something like that,
but it's certainly not anything flu-like.
Other than the physical symptoms
that patients could experience,
were their other barriers, logistical barriers,
that prevented patients from receiving them?
Well there are barriers as far as access to vaccines.
Certainly within recent years,
it seems like you can get a vaccine anywhere,
so some of those barriers have been torn down.
You know, you can go to your local pharmacy,
sometimes the grocery stores have a marathon,
the mall, a lot of health departments
have vaccine campaigns, so vaccines seem
to pretty available.
Sometimes I think our patients with a rheumatic disease
are a little more cautious about,
"Should I talk to my doctor first about vaccines?"
So one thing that we've found very helpful,
and we do it in the arthritis center,
and actually all of our centers here
in the division of rheumatology,
is offer the vaccines at the time of their visits.
So we usually have flu vaccines starting in September,
and patients can get their flu vaccine
while they're here having an appointment
for a regular follow-up.
That's great, so if I was a patient
who came to see you in the arthritis center
and I had fears or I didn't know about
the importance of vaccines, what would you tell me?
Well the first thing I would tell you
is often people think they're gonna get the flu,
and that is a myth.
One thing to remember is that it takes two weeks
for a vaccine to really build up those antibodies,
which means just build up the defense
to the vaccine.
We really encourage you to give yourself
the best possible defense you can
against things that we know vaccines will prevent.
So I would hope that that would help you
understand the importance of why
you should get the vaccine.
Absolutely.
Well thank you so much.
We look forward to seeing what you put out next
and educating our patients with the importance
of vaccines and other things.
So thank you so much for joining us.
You're welcome.