Contact
Catarina Svensson
Professor at the Department of Clinical Sciences; Ruminant Medicine Unit
Telephone: +4618671391
E-mail: catarina.svensson@slu.se
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Why Swedish farmers follow, or not follow, the vet's advice
Last changed: 17 August 2020
The problem of nonadherence to advice is recognized in several professional relationships, including the veterinarian-client relationship. A better understanding of farmer perspectives may help to improve efficiency in veterinary herd health management. This study aimed to qualitatively and quantitatively describe farmers' reasons for adherence and nonadherence with veterinary recommendations regarding preventive herd health measures.
We carried out structured telephone interviews about implementation of preventive measures with owners or staff of 163 dairy farms and 6 beef farms. The farms had received an advisory visit by their veterinarian (n = 36), who had documented the preventive measures they had recommended. The interviewer noted verbatim responses to reasons for implementing preventive measures fully, partially, or not at all, and we analyzed these responses thematically. We also conducted a quantitative analysis, in which we calculated descriptive statistics of the proportions of different categories of reasons stated by the farmers.
Altogether, 726 preventive measures (range per farm 1 to 17; median 3; interquartile range 2 to 6) were documented. We identified 3 organizing themes related to adherence or nonadherence with veterinary advice: trust, feasibility, and priorities. Overall, the most commonly stated reasons related to trust (in the veterinarian, in the advisory process, or in individual preventive measures). The most common reasons not to follow the recommended advice were related to feasibility.
Based on the results, we recommend that, to improve adherence to their advice, veterinarians pay increased attention to farmers' needs, priorities, goals, and motives, as well as to farmers' perceptions of the effectiveness of individual preventive measures. We also recommend that veterinarians need to increase their focus on recommending preventive measures that are practically feasible to implement on farms.
Link to the publication
https://doi.org/10.3168/jds.2019-16470
Reference
Svensson, C., Lind, N., Reyher, K.K., Bard, A.M., Emanuelson, U. Trust, feasibility and priorities influence Swedish dairy farmers' adherence and non-adherence to veterinary advice. J. Dairy Sci., 2019, 102, 10360-10368