Abstract
BackgroundOne of the strategies for improving vaccination uptake is to make communities understand the importance of immunization and this is expected to drive the demand for vaccines. Building the capacity of older women who supervise child care in Africa may improve infant vaccination in underserved communities. This study determined the impact of training of older women on their knowledge and support for infant vaccination in selected urban slum communities in Ibadan, Nigeria.MethodsThis was a before-and-after study that enrolled women aged ≥35 years. They were trained with a manual and short video using participatory learning methods over an 8 month period. The content of their training includes importance of immunization timeliness and completion, how vaccines work and how to be advocates and supporters of infant vaccination. Their knowledge and support for infant vaccination at baseline were compared with post training values using Student’s t test and Chi square test with the level of significance set at 5%.ResultsThere were 109 women with mean age 55.8 ± 11.6. they had a mean of 5.7 ± 2.1 training sessions. At the end of the training, their knowledge about infant vaccination and the support they give to it increased from 4.8 ± 3.8 to 10.7 ± 0.6, and 3.1 ± 3.5 to 8.1 ± 1.7 respectively. Those with good knowledge about infant vaccination increased significantly from 37(33.9%) to 82(82.8%), while those with good support for the same increased from 31(28.4%) to 85(85.9%). Women who were ≤ 64 years significantly had improved knowledge after the training compared to the older ones. Those with post secondary education had better knowledge and greater support for infant vaccination at baseline. However, there was no difference in the knowledge and support for infant vaccination among the women across the different educational levels after the training.ConclusionsParticipatory learning improved the knowledge about, and support for infant vaccination among older women supervising child care in these urban slum communities. Similar training may be extended to comparable settings in order to improve demand for infant vaccination.
Highlights
One of the strategies for improving vaccination uptake is to make communities understand the importance of immunization and this is expected to drive the demand for vaccines
It is important to identify other channels through which infant vaccination coverage can be accelerated in order to realize this goal and ensure that the country reap the full benefit of good infant vaccination coverage as earlier stated
In this study, participatory learning was effective in improving the knowledge of infant vaccination and its support among older women who were involved in the care of infants in urban slums in Ibadan
Summary
One of the strategies for improving vaccination uptake is to make communities understand the importance of immunization and this is expected to drive the demand for vaccines. Immunization has contributed immensely to the improvement of the quality of life in childhood as well as adulthood and its coverage is a good measure of the performance of the health system of a country [2] It has economic benefits as it prevents unnecessary spending on curative services, leading to conservation of resources [3] while increasing productivity through improvement in human cognitive and physical functions [4]. It is a priority for the health system, the family and other stakeholders to achieve and continue to maintain a high level of infant vaccination coverage in every country. It is important to identify other channels through which infant vaccination coverage can be accelerated in order to realize this goal and ensure that the country reap the full benefit of good infant vaccination coverage as earlier stated
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