Attitudes about the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic among pregnant Japanese women and the use of the Japanese municipality as a source of information

Abstract

We conducted this study to determine the use of Japanese municipal information sources about the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic among 109 pregnant Japanese women during October and November 2009 and to determine their attitudes regarding the pandemic. During November 2009, the number of municipality information users increased significantly, however, the percentage of public magazine users remained under 40% and the percentage of municipality website users remained significantly lower than other website users. The accession of municipality information did not alleviate the anxiety of subjects caused by inaccurate information, such as mortality due to the virus infection and the safety of oseltamivir use. Those who obtained information about the pandemic from the municipality were more willing to receive the influenza vaccine than non-users. The results show the municipality information system needs to be improved to ameliorate anxiety and more effectively convey health information for future pandemics. Other Japanese public health service information systems shoud be assessed as well to determine their efficacy in delivering information regarding the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic.