Table 3 Perceptions of influenza and its vaccine: unvaccinated patients with diabetes (N = 11)

Perception that influenza is serious

... I know that flu that’s not treated can get very bad… (P1).

Trivialisation of influenza

Is it really useful to protect yourself from influenza... I think you get it more or less every year… (P19).

No feeling of vulnerability

Then there was ... I ... except for the diabetes I’m rarely ill, which is why I never go to the GP, by the way; it’s a disease certainly, but one that is not at all constraining once you know how to handle it well, and as a result I absolutely do not feel ill and so I do nothing in particular to take care of my health (P10).

General feeling of vulnerability

This process of early aging of the arteries, vessels, of the organism. I am in a body, inside a person 80 years old and you know, it’s hard (P3).

Attitudes of fatalism, relativisation

Well, if I have to catch [the flu], I will (P3).

The really contagious diseases, ah! Yes, there I say yes ok [to vaccination]! [...] but really, the flu, no!... (P3).

Influenza is a manageable risk

I think especially that I try to pay attention to not expose myself, um... although the flu is a virus I think, no? (P14).

...after all we have treatments that can combat the flu, I mean, it’s not 20 or 50 years ago (P3).

The vaccine is not always effective

Because I had a friend who did it and that did not stop her from having a violent case of the flu (P17).

Vaccination amounts to injecting yourself with the disease

I have never had the flu, I am not going to catch it by being vaccinated... (P17).

Invocation of innate immunity

And then, I figure that the body must have what’s required to pull through by itself... (P6).

Mistrust of side effects

For example, what I heard about the people who have multiple sclerosis after hepatitis vaccinations... well, I knew several people with multiple sclerosis... Finally it is maybe not linked, because I think that nothing has been proven, but I still have this doubt! (P6).

Pay attention to these side effects... because you know everything that is medication, now vaccines, it’s the same, you understand that there are side effects that you have to watch out for! (P16).

Suspicion of the vaccine because of the pharmaceutical industry’s financial interests and since the H1N1 campaign

… I say to myself that they monitor them ... finally they don’t do enough tests to make sure about side effects (P10).

...I think that came from the last vaccination campaign... it was really a bloody fiasco... we had the impression that they vaccinated people for... actually we don’t know why! (P19).

Negligence, procrastination

So I should have redone the vaccine, I didn’t have any block against it in principle that... I didn’t have time, I don’t know...you know, getting through the day is not always simple (P15).