Knowledge, Attitudes and Practice (KAP) Study Among Parents about Vaccination in Tertiary Care Hospital of Karachi, Pakistan

Abstract

Administration of vaccine to defend a person's immune system against an infection is called Immunization. It's a prophylactic treatment for many diseases that's the reason the childhood vaccinations have been highlighted. The objective is to assess the knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) of parents about vaccination in Zia-Uddin university hospital, Karachi. A cross sectional study was conducted among the parents of young children (≤5 years). A tertiary care teaching hospital was selected for collecting the data for the period of 7 months from June 2019 to December 2019 in Karachi. For Collection of data pediatric out patient's department and emergency department of a private hospital of Karachi was targeted. After reviewing the abundant amount of relevant data, a questionnaire was constructed to assess the parental knowledge attitude and perception (KAP) regarding the vaccinations among their child. The results were displayed by frequencies and percentages. A pilot study was conducted among 25 parents to check and optimize clarity of questionnaire. This study showed that total 450 responses were correctly fill the questioner in which (21.3%) recorded with male gender and remaining were female's preponderance (78.7%). Most of the parents (44.7%) reported were in age group of 30-39 years. (83.6%) parents were educated and their source of information was doctors (73.6%). (6.79%) of parents marked their children has already suffered from the preventable disease. (85.4%) of parents have their child vaccination record. 67.9% of parents remained uncertain had no knowledge regarding the vaccinations. (27.8%) of parents stated that a vaccination can produce side effects. Results shows that targeted population have awareness, knowledge and importance of vaccination, and have a positive attitudes and practice pattern regarding vaccination. A satisfying outcomes found in this study. It is observed that most of the participants parents having awareness regarding vaccination and wanted to know about the vaccine benefits.