Knowledge,Behavior and Attitude of Mother's about Childhood Immunization and Reasons of Vaccination Rejection and Hesitancy: A Study of Mixt Methodology

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: The aim of the study was to observe knowledge, attitudes and behavior of mother'sabout childhood vaccinationand related factors affectingtheir perspectives on immunization services and their hesitations about vaccination. METHODS: This cross-sectional descriptive and qualitative study was carried out between August 2018 and May 2019 with 350 mothers who applied to 4 Family Health Centers for any reason in the central districts of Hatay. A questionnaire was administered to 350 mothers about their knowledge, attitudes and behaviors about childhood vaccines. The questionnaires were filled in by face-to-face interview method after informing the participants about the study and obtaining consent from the participants. A semi-structured in-depth interview form was administered to 30 randomly selected subjects. All interviews were recorded with voice recorder after approval. SPSS software was used for cross-sectional analysis and p <0.05 was considered significant. Content analysis method was used to evaluate the data at qualitative stage. Codes that can be extracted from sentences were composed. The proper themes that were subject to the thematic coding were removed after the composed codes. All interview data were coded and interpreted and reported, afterwards. RESULTS: Of 350 mothers participated in the study. 31.71% (n: 111) were between the ages of 30-39, 73.43% (n: 257) were housewives and 30.29% (n: 106) were primary school graduates. 60.57% (n: 212) of the mothers stated that there was a lack of information about paid vaccines. The most commonly known and received paid vaccines were flu (33.33% n: 46) and rotavirus vaccines (24.64% n: 34). The most common vaccines in the national drug calendar to mothers were MCC (14.83%), varicella (14.53%) and tetanus (13.92%), respectively. According to the analysis of the interviews, participants emphasized that vaccines are necessary for their children, but attention should be paid to the content of the vaccines and the storage conditions of the vaccines. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: A significant number of mothers were found to lack information about vaccines.Regarding vaccines, mothers were most concerned about vaccine content and storage conditions.Providing accurate and appropriate information by health professionals is important for eliminating missing or incorrect information owned by individuals.

Keywords

• child vaccines
• paid vaccines
• immunization