Barriers to the use of reminder/recall interventions for immunizations: a systematic review.

BACKGROUND: Although many studies have demonstrated the benefits of reminder/recall (RR) measures to address patient under-immunization and improve immunization coverage- they are not widely implemented by healthcare providers. We identified providers' perceived barriers to their use from existing literature. METHODS: We conducted a systematic review of relevant articles published in English between January 1990 and July 2011 that examined the perceptions of healthcare providers regarding barriers to tracking patient immunization history and implementing RR interventions. We searched MEDLINE- PubMed- EMBASE- Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature- Academic Search Premier- and PsychINFO. Additional strategies included hand-searching the references of pertinent articles and related reviews- and searching keywords in Google Scholar and Google. RESULTS: Ten articles were included/ all described populations in the United States- and examined perceptions of family physicians- pediatricians- and ot