Abstract
India has one of the largest universal immunization programs in the world with large involvement of money and manpower, and multiple agencies working together still thousands of children still die from Vaccine- Preventable diseases each year. Lack of awareness among caregivers is one of great barrier for non-immunization or partial immunization of children. This study has been conducted to assess the knowledge, and practice of caregivers about their understanding of childhood immunization in Damoh district of Bundelkhand region of Madhya Pradesh. 360 houses were with child below 3 years age were surveyed and caregivers were interviewed using predesigned and pretested questionnaire regarding to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice of parents about child immunization. Multistage random sampling was used to select 10 houses each from 02 wards/ mohallas of each 03 subcentres of each 06 PHC (primary health centre) in Damoh. Only 192(53.33%) of the caregivers knew when vaccination was to be initiated and 50 % were aware when the vaccination get completed. Among 360 children of selected houses 107 (29.72%) children were partially immunized. Lack of awareness of next/further dose of vaccine was found to be the major reason (25.23%) for incomplete immunization. So there is a need to increase awareness and knowledge about the benefits of vaccination, as well as the potential disadvantage of partial immunization. IEC (information, education and communication) activities must be increased in immunization clinics, session sites and in mass media to improve its the awareness of community.
Keywords: immunization, knowledge, attitude.
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Corresponding Author
Dr Sunil Kant Guleri
Department of Community Medicine, Bundelkhand Medical College Sagar, Madhya Pradesh, India
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Contact No.: 9752701650
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.18535/jmscr/v7i5.52
