Vaccination Status and Factors for Non- Vaccination in Children at a Tertiary Care Hospital

Abstract

Immunization is a very effective strategy to prevent against common infectious disease. The objectives of the study were to determine the immunization status and reasons for non-vaccination of children coming to Civil Hospital Sukkur. This cross-sectional study was conducted pediatric OPD at Civil Hospital Sukkur from January 1, 2013, to June 30, 2013. Parents of children under five years of age brought their child to Outpatient Department of Civil Hospital Sukkur for any illness were asked to participate in the study. Parents who gave informed consent were included in the study. Data were collected using a small questionnaire by the researcher himself. A total of 500 parents gave consent to participate in the study. The average age of children was 20.4±16.3 months, 257 (51.4%) were males and 243 (48.6%) were females. Four hundred and four (80.4%) children were fully vaccinated and 98 (19.6%) were not vaccinated. Parents don't know about immunization, busy parents, illness of a child, fear of immunization and parents who are not considering immunization as important are independent factors of non-vaccination. Sukkur, Instructor, research, Department of Community health Sciences, Aga Khan University Karachi, Fifteen percent of Pakistan population constitutes children under five years of age. These children contributed 50% of overall mortality compared to 8-10 in high-income countries [3]. The rate of mortality of children under five years of age is high in South Asian countries. According to the World Bank, the under-five mortality rate is quite high for Pakistan 81/1000 live births (LB) compared to India 48 and Bangladesh 38/1000 LB.[4] Communicable diseases are a major cause of under-five mortality. To develop preventive measure against communicable diseases, a pilot project of expanded program of immunization (EPI) had been launched in 1974. In 1985, this program was further augmented by accelerated health plan of government (AHP) which resulted in improving coverage from a low 5% to 70% in 1984. [5,6] in the last decade national immunization days (NIDs) and the mopping up campaigns (door to door vaccination in high-risk areas) have been introduced to provide maximum coverage [7,8].In developing countries, vaccinating children has the highest impact on health intervention that not only reduces hospitalization but also decreases the treatment cost through prevention [9,10] The vaccine coverage varies according to the province of Pakistan. According to recent Pakistan Demographic and health survey (PDHS) 2012(PDHS) -2013

Immunization status of children aged 1-5 years attending tertiary care center and reasons for partial or non-immunization

“…Gender variation is the next observed variable in this study. 16,17 Our study showed female gender is vulnerable for immunization default with p-value 0.001 and OR 2.084 with (95% CI 1.347 to 3.226) which is similar to the systematic review by Mathew Joseph L and Mugada V et al studies. 18,19 Residence proved no correlation for partial immunization in our study which was similar to Holipa et al study and Madhavi et al study at Kakinada, AP.…”

The Determinants of Parental Uptake of Childhood Immunization in Peri-Urban Areas of Karachi - A Cross-Sectional Study

“…The determinants are mostly related to child parental determinants 12 . Many parents usually give up on the cycle of immunization as the parents are too busy to bring the child for vaccination 13 maternal education 14 and health seeking behavior of mothers 15 , compliance with interventions to increase the vaccination uptake by the health departments 16 ethnic, social determinants and poverty 17 , lack of parental information about immunization 18 lack of knowledge regarding the dangers of no immunization 15 lack of knowledge regarding the number of doses 13 child's gender as in Pakistan girls are least likely to obtain all elementary vaccines than boys 19 , distance between house to immunization facility 20 , parental lack of knowledge and unawareness of benefits of immunization 21 , and incorrect ideas about vaccination were also significant for fail immunization coverage 22 .…”