Background: Parents’ satisfaction with child vaccination services is related to quality of care, and at the same time, it affects quality of the health care outcomes. However, there is a paucity of evidence on parents’ satisfaction with vaccination services. Thus, this study aimed to assess the level of satisfaction with childhood vaccination services and associated factors among parents in Ethiopia.
Methods: The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines were used for this study. Both published and unpublished articles conducted in Ethiopia on parents’ satisfaction with childhood vaccination care services were searched.
A total of 147,000 articles were retrieved international databases (Scopus, MEDLINE/
PubMed, Web Science, Science Direct, Google Scholar, and National Digital Library repositories), 146,987 of which were excluded, while only 13 articles were included in the meta-analysis. The search for articles was conducted during the period of April 3–30, 2024. For the methodological quality assessment of the included articles, a modified version of the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale adapted for cross-sectional studies was used. Stata version 11 software was used for analysis. A random-effects model was used to calculate pooled estimates. The I2 test was used to assess the heterogeneity of the studies.
Results: The overall level of parental satisfaction with child vaccine services in Ethiopia was 65.6% (95% CI: 58.74, 72.44%). Parents knowledge (AOR=1.93; 95% CI: 1.09–3.42), favorable attitudes (AOR=3.42; 95% CI: 1.86–5.62), greeting/welcome approach services (AOR=3.89; 95% CI: 1.80–8.41), and waiting less than 30 minutes to receive child vaccination services (AOR=2.58, 95% CI: 1.25–5.35) were positive determinants of the outcome variable.
Conclusions: This study revealed that only two-thirds of parents were satisfied with child vaccination services. Quality assurance activities that assess parental satisfaction with child vaccination care may have added value in identifying children who are less likely to receive timely vaccination services. Policymakers and decision-makers in Ethiopia should design strategies to optimize parental satisfaction with healthcare services by providing client-centered care. Moreover, the ministry of health should design compassionate respectful care provision guidelines and we also strongly recommend that a special emphasis be given to timely and greeting approach healthcare service provisions.