Assessment of Routine Child Immunization and Associated Factors Among Children Under Two Years of Age in Jigjiga Karamara Hospital, East Ethiopia

Abstract

Objective : Expanded programme on immunization (EPI) is one of the greatest achievements in medicine and public health, greatly reducing morbidity, mortality and health care costs. Despite various initiatives and campaigns, programme improvement was marginalized in Ethiopia. This study was aimed to assess routine child immunization and associated factors among children less than two years of age in Jigjiga Karamara Hospital, East Ethiopia. Methods : Institutional-based cross-sectional study was conducted on mothers who have 0–23 month's children visiting the Jigjiga Karamara Hospital, East Ethiopia. Systematic random sampling technique was used to draw the samples; data were collected by using a structured questionnaire translated to the local language. Percentage mean and SD were used to describe the data on immunization status and related sociodemographic variables manually whereas c 2 -tests were used for finding the association between independent variables and immunization status with statistical significance considered at P-value < 0.05. Result : The age of mothers participating in the present study ranged from 17 to 50 years with the mean and median of 27.63 and 26, respectively. Out of all the mothers participating in the study, 282 (91.2%) were married (living with their husbands), 15 (4.9%) were divorced, while 12 (1.9%) of them were both widowed and unmarried. The majority of participants 239 (77.4%) were housewives, 65 (21%) were merchants, while five (1.6%) were students. Among the children who participated in the study, the majority of them were vaccinated 229 (74.2%), while 80 (25.8%) were not vaccinated. This study also showed that 80 (25.8%) children had not ever started vaccination and of those who started vaccination, 64 (28%) have defaulted from vaccination. From the total respondents, about 207 (66.9%) of them believed that vaccination has no problem, while 65 (21%) of them agreed that vaccine will cause a problem. Conclusion: This study indicated that routine child immunization rate for Penta1, Rota1 to Penta3 Rota2 were 31 (13%), and Penta1 or BCG to measles was 64 (28%). This value is by far unacceptable according to the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended cut-off point for dropout rate which is less than 10%. Keywords: child immunization, Ethiopia , Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) , Jigjiga, vaccination, World Health Organization (WHO) Cite this Article Ahmed Muse, Melese Sinaga, Tesfahun Bekele Jember, Tabarak Malik. Assessment of Routine Child Immunization and Associated Factors Among Children Under Two Years of Age in Jigjiga Karamara Hospital, East Ethiopia. Research & Reviews: A Journal of Immunology . 2019; 9(3): 25–32p.