Abstract

Shingles is the reactivation of the chicken pox virus in the body leading to a painful rash along a nerve pathway. Shingles can lead to postherpetic neuralgia (PHN) which is a complication due to shingles. It occurs if your nerve fibers are damaged during an outbreak of shingles. It can be a mildly itchy to an intensely painful rash. The currently available shingles vaccine is called Shingrix. Shingrix is more than 90% effective at preventing shingles and PHN, once someone gets vaccinated, they are protected more than 85% for at least the first 4 years. My hypothesis is “”After educating the geriatric patients of Adventist at Oakhurst, California with an informational pamphlet on the shingles vaccine, at least 75% of them will display an increased understanding and comfort with the shingles vaccine by answering “yes” to the first 3 questions of the attached questionnaire.”” The hypothesis will be tested by the questions in the questionnaires, the first 3 questions will be the main identifiers of a change in thought and attitude toward shingles and the vaccine. The last 4 for the “before pamphlet questions” will be different from the 3 questions for “after pamphlet questions”, these will be used to help identify the general idea of the patient’s knowledge before and after the pamphlet. Lastly, there
was an obvious change in responses with the first question it had a 5% increase for answering “Yes” to question 1, a 2% decrease for answering “No”, a 9% decrease for answering “Unsure”, and 6% did not answer for after the pamphlet. The percentage of patients that answered “No”, “Unsure” and did not answer before the pamphlet was 25% and after was 20%, this 5% change may depict that the pamphlet was able to decrease the number of negative or complacent opinions on vaccines.