A Cross-sectional study on the knowledge, attitude ,and practices of childhood immunization among mothers of under-five children attending a rural tertiary care center in South India

Abstract

Background: Immunization is believed to save between 2 and 3 million lives each year. NFHS –4 survey shows that full immunization coverage in Andhra Pradesh is 59.8% in an urban area. The main reasons for inadequate coverage include inadequacy of information, education, and community participation in routine immunization. The study aimed to determine mothers' knowledge, attitude, and practice of childhood immunization.Methods: A cross-sectional study of 300 mothers of under-five children visiting the Pediatrics Out Patient Department during the period between August 2020 to November 2020 was done. The mothers were given a pretested questionnaire consisting of questions related to knowledge, attitude, and immunization practice. This study's data were subjected to standard statistical analysis using the SPSS ver.20 data processing software for windows seven. The p-value was considered significant for all tests if it was less than 0.05 at a confidence level of 95%.
Results: The primary resource of information about vaccination was from hospital/ health care workers (58%). Among 300 mothers, 28% of mothers were concerned about adverse reactions. The majority (89%) were utterly immunized, whereas 11% were partially immunized.11% of mothers postponed immunization.86% of mothers had good knowledge about the National immunization schedule. More than half of the studied sample, 162 (54%), were females and 138(46%) were males. The child's gender was not a significant factor in immunization status. There was a statistically significant between the education of the mother and immunization status. In this study, 74% belonged to the lower class and associated with immunization status was statistically significant.Conclusion: We conclude that maternal education, maternal attitude towards immunization, and the source of knowledge about immunization significantly reflected the state of vaccination. The improvement of maternal literacy and dissemination of information about vaccination will increase vaccine coverage in children.