Using a mobile application (“PrimaKu”) to promote childhood immunization in Indonesia: A cross-sectional study

Abstract

Background: Universal immunization coverage among children in Indonesia is low compared to the global target. Many children in Indonesia are not fully immunized as recommended by the government, which results in a high mortality rate. The government has developed a mobile application (PrimaKu) to provide information on vaccinations and reminder features. However, the successful use of the immunization features of the app has not been widely studied.Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the use of PrimaKu on maternal attitudes toward immunization and complete basic immunizations status among Indonesian children aged 12 to 24 months.Methods: A cross-sectional research was conducted at a public health center in West Java Province, Indonesia, from August to December 2020. Convenience sampling was used to select the respondents. Data were collected using validated questionnaires and analyzed using binomial logistic regression.Results: A total of 119 mothers were included. About 44.5% of children had a complete basic immunization status. Mothers who had a supportive attitude toward immunization were 3.58 times (95% CI 1.49-8.57, p 0.003) more likely to complete the basic immunization, and those who used the mobile app were 3.23 times (95% CI 1.18-8.87, p 0.034) more likely to complete the immunization. Conclusion: Using the PrimaKu mobile application could increase maternal attitudes toward immunization and complete basic immunization status. Therefore, public health nurses should provide comprehensive education and improve mothers’ literacy to use the application.Funding: This study was funded by Universitas Indonesia, Indonesia.

Mobile Applications in Childhood Immunization: A Systematic Review

“…A significant concern in child mortality and morbidity is the poor level of vaccination, either because of fear of the side effects caused by the vaccine, lack of health centers in the area where the family lives, forgetfulness, lack of knowledge, poor information received, insufficient health education or indifferent on the part on the infant's parents/caregivers of the infant, which is why mobile applications are being developed whose function is to remind parents of child vaccination [14,22,25,26,27,28,29,31,32,34,36,37,38,39,41,42,43,45,46,47,49,50,51,52]. However, it is also being used as a vaccine safety control [53] and even more so with the issue of new vaccination technologies applied to COVID-19.…”

“…Studies found Registration and monitoring [22], [33], [42] Access to information [22], [25], [40], [42], [44], [47], [26] Increasing coverage [22], [24], [14], [26], [29], [30], [35], [39], [42], [47], [52], [29], [46], [48], [50] Reminders [22], [14], [25], [26], [27], [28], [29], [31], [32], [34], [36], [37], [38], [39], [41], [42], [43], [45], [46], [47], [49], [50], [51], [52] Education [25],…”

“…Disease prevention education through vaccination is another vital issue that needs to be addressed in developing countries [30]. This is done through studies developing new technologies and mobile applications that promote education about the importance of vaccines [25,26,27,28,33,41,42,44,47].…”

“…Mobile technology applied to healthcare is relatively young, i.e., studies are still underway to develop better methods or to effectively use a combination of them in such a way that leads to an increase in demand and awareness of vaccination [27], [28] since the results differ in each context, in that sense, different methods, applications, and technologies are born, technologies that allow increasing vaccination coverage in their realities [22,24,14,26,29,30,35,39,42,47,52,29,46,48,50], some of them to digitalize the vaccination card [22,25,40,42,44,47,26], other new health technologies, allow health personnel to make decisions to have a more solid health sector, with much greater scope; This favors the implementation of vaccination campaigns and decreases the mortality rate [24,33,40,42] by monitoring the infant's compliance with the vaccination schedule [24,40,42,43,44,47,50].…”

“…The creation of cellular phone's applications, combined with the use of technologies and knowledge of the context in which they are applied, allows for achieving objectives such as increasing vaccination using SMS text messages and voice messages [14,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,34,35,36,37,38,39,41,42,43,45,46,47,49,50,51,52], this allows the sending of reminders and informational messages that educate parents/caregivers about the importance of vaccination [25,26,27,28,33,41,42,44,47], taking greater relevance in populations with higher illiteracy rates [33]. Other studies incorporate SMS and the electronic wallet to encourage parents to vaccinate their children [14,39,46,50].…”