Stefan Bittmann

Reminder How With Little Effort the Vaccination of Children Can Be Made Less Painful

At present, per recommendation of the Permanent Vaccination Commission (Impfempfehlungen der Ständigen Impfkommission, STIKO) Germany, children are vaccinated approximately 20 times with different vaccines—annually flu shots not included—by the time they are 18 years old. Injections are the most unpopular devices/processes among children and are often the cause of anxiety and fear. Furthermore, these lead to negative doctor–child relationship. However, by employing a few simple strategies children can be easily vaccinated. In regular pediatric practice, because of time constraints, pediatricians tend to vaccinate as quickly as possible, neglecting the child’s needs. As a child has to be vaccinated many times over the years, the doctor needs the cooperation of the child, failing which each injection episode becomes a big drama. Several studies have been conducted to determine which psychological interventions are the most effective for reducing vaccination-associated pain. Our aim, however, is to remind pediatricians and general practitioners how best they could vaccinate children with minimum effort and significantly less pain. It is important that we revise this topic more often as vaccinations are done frequently.

The role of complementary medicine in a pediatric day center in Germany.

Background: The role of complementary alternative medicine (CAM) in pediatrics has considerably increased in the last years. The knowledge about potential side effects and possible interactions with conventional drugs is still limited, and often pediatricians do not know whether their patients use CAM. This can be critical, as in order to diagnose and treat illnesses properly physicians need to know about the full extent of the self-administered therapy of their patients. Many studies have been conducted in other countries in order to assess the extent of CAM use and the types of substances that are consumed, but in Germany data in regard to pediatric interventions are lacking. We therefore developed a questionnaire to evaluate the frequency of CAM use among German pediatric patients. Patients and Methods: 115 parents visiting the pediatric day center in Epe between September and November 2011 responded to the questionnaire. The survey contains questions concerning the prevalence of CAM use and data about socioeconomic factors. Results: A total of 75.7% of all children enrolled in the study had already been treated with CAM by their parents, while only 43.6% of the parents knew that there can be interactions with CAM and prescribed drugs. In only half of the cases (50.6%) the pediatrician knew about the CAM usage of the child. Conclusion: The frequency of CAM usage among children is higher than anticipated. It is essential that pediatricians know about possible interactions with conventional medicine, and it lies in their responsibility to include the question about CAM usage in their standard protocols.