IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v367y2025ics0277953625001376.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Understanding vaccine scepticism among complementary and alternative medicine users: A comprehensive mixed-methods investigation

Author

Listed:
  • Souček, Ivan
  • Hofreiter, Roman
  • Beňová, Kamila Koza

Abstract

The use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has been widely recognized as a potential contributor to the emergence of vaccine scepticism and refusal. However, a direct correlation between trust in CAM and vaccine scepticism is still a matter of discussion. The objective of this study is to explore the multidimensional factors that explain the association between CAM usage and vaccine scepticism. Qualitative and quantitative research designs were adopted to examine whether visiting CAM practitioners directly contributes to vaccine scepticism and to identify whether antivaccination attitudes are caused by other social, and cultural factors. These findings support the idea that CAM users tend to exhibit more vaccine scepticism compared to non-users. However, preferring a holistic health model, individual autonomy, and a negative perception of biomedicine representatives emerged as more influential factors in understanding the connection between the prevalence of CAM utilization and vaccine scepticism. Taken together, these results suggest that CAM itself is not the direct predictor of vaccine scepticism. To build trust between the population and vaccines, this information can be used to develop targeted interventions aimed at strategies to improve healthcare services and develop the soft skills of medical doctors.

Suggested Citation

  • Souček, Ivan & Hofreiter, Roman & Beňová, Kamila Koza, 2025. "Understanding vaccine scepticism among complementary and alternative medicine users: A comprehensive mixed-methods investigation," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 367(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:367:y:2025:i:c:s0277953625001376
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.117808
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953625001376
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.117808?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:plo:pone00:0177307 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Hornsey, Matthew J. & Lobera, Josep & Díaz-Catalán, Celia, 2020. "Vaccine hesitancy is strongly associated with distrust of conventional medicine, and only weakly associated with trust in alternative medicine," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 255(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Colo, Philippe, 2021. "Cassandra's Curse: A Second Tragedy of the Commons," MPRA Paper 110878, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Vincenzo Carrieri & Raffele Lagravinese & Giuliano Resce, 2021. "Predicting vaccine hesitancy from area‐level indicators: A machine learning approach," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(12), pages 3248-3256, December.
    3. Daphne Bussink-Voorend & Jeannine L. A. Hautvast & Lisa Vandeberg & Olga Visser & Marlies E. J. L. Hulscher, 2022. "A systematic literature review to clarify the concept of vaccine hesitancy," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 6(12), pages 1634-1648, December.
    4. Christophe Leveque & Haris Megzari, 2022. "Intensification or Diversification: Responses by Anti Health-Pass Entrepreneurs to French Government Announcements," Working Papers hal-03624964, HAL.
    5. Christophe LEVEQUE & Haris MEGZARI, 2022. "Intensification or Diversification: Responses by Anti Health-Pass Entrepreneurs to French Government Announcements," Bordeaux Economics Working Papers 2022-04, Bordeaux School of Economics (BSE).
    6. Gary D. Sherman & Beth Vallen & Stacey R. Finkelstein & Paul M. Connell & Wendy Attaya Boland & Kristen Feemster, 2021. "When taking action means accepting responsibility: Omission bias predicts parents' reluctance to vaccinate due to greater anticipated culpability for negative side effects," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(4), pages 1660-1681, December.
    7. Ward, Jeremy K. & Gauna, Fatima & Deml, Michael J. & MacKendrick, Norah & Peretti-Watel, Patrick, 2023. "Diversity of attitudes towards complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) and vaccines: A representative cross-sectional study in France," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 328(C).
    8. Christophe Lévêque & Haris Megzari, 2023. "Intensification or diversification: responses by anti health-pass entrepreneurs to French government announcements," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 23(4), pages 553-583, December.
    9. Jose Luis Arroyo-Barrigüete & Carmen Escudero-Guirado & Beatriz Minguela-Rata, 2023. "Factors influencing the social perception of entrepreneurs in Spain: A quantitative analysis from secondary data," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 18(12), pages 1-23, December.
    10. Nurmi, Johanna & Jaakola, Joni, 2023. "Losing trust: Processes of vaccine hesitancy in parents’ narratives," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 331(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:367:y:2025:i:c:s0277953625001376. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.