Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Dec 21;4(4):e469.
doi: 10.1002/hsr2.469. eCollection 2021 Dec.

Patients' attitude towards vaccination after Guillain Barré syndrome

Ben-Ole Holtz  1 , Alexander Grimm  2 , Hubertus Axer  1
Affiliations

Patients' attitude towards vaccination after Guillain Barré syndrome

Ben-Ole Holtz et al. Health Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Background and aims: Guillain Barré syndrome (GBS) could be triggered by an infectious disease but by vaccination as well. Thus, suffering GBS may influence patients' attitudes towards vaccination.

Methods: An anonymous questionnaire consisting of the Overall Neuropathy Limitations Score (ONLS), the short form-36 health survey (SF-36), and questions addressing patients' attitude towards vaccination was sent to members of a German GBS support group and to patients with GBS diagnosis who were treated at Jena University Hospital.

Results: Ninety-seven questionnaires clearly stated GBS as a diagnosis and were included in the analysis. Although 19.6% of the GBS patients reported having no disability in the long-time follow-up, a considerable number of patients still had persistent neurological symptoms; 74.2% of the GBS patients reported being able to walk at least 10 m independently. However, 5.2% were restricted to wheelchair. The patients reached lower scores in all domains of quality of life compared to German controls. Moreover, patients showed a more critical attitude towards vaccination compared to a German representative survey. Fewer patients (58.8%) received a vaccination after suffering from GBS than before (77.3%). Every tenth patient believed that vaccination was the trigger for the GBS. 32% of the patients did not receive a vaccination in the last 5 years mainly because of the fear of adverse effects (32%) or disadvise of the general practitioners (25.8%).

Discussion: Although the risk of relapse following immunization may be rather low, uncertainties and fears still impair the counseling of these patients by their medical practitioner.

Keywords: Guillain Barré syndrome; attitude; outcome; quality of life; vaccination.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

None of the authors has any conflict of interest to disclose.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Attitude towards vaccination in the GBS patient group and in the German representative survey
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Additional questions regarding patients' attitude towards vaccination
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
(A) Histograms of ONLS scores of the GBS patients. (B) Quality of life (SF‐36)
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4
Attitude towards vaccination in correlation to the total ONLS score
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Shahrizaila N, Lehmann HC, Kuwabara S. Guillain‐Barré syndrome. Lancet (Lond Engl.). 2021;397(10280):1214‐1228. - PubMed
    1. Malek E, Salameh J. Guillain‐Barre Syndrome. Semin Neurol. 2019;39(5):589‐595. - PubMed
    1. Leonhard SE, Mandarakas MR, Gondim FAA, et al. Diagnosis and management of Guillain‐Barré syndrome in ten steps. Nat Rev Neurol. 2019;15(11):671‐683. - PMC - PubMed
    1. McGrogan A, Madle GC, Seaman HE, de Vries CS. The epidemiology of Guillain‐Barré syndrome worldwide. A systematic literature review. Neuroepidemiology. 2009;32(2):150‐163. - PubMed
    1. Verboon C, Doets AY, Galassi G, et al; IGOS Consortium. Current treatment practice of Guillain‐Barré syndrome. Neurology. 2019;93(1):e59‐e76. - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources