KNOWLEDGE AND MISCONCEPTIONS AMONG LEBANESE COMMUNITY ON IMMUNIZATIONS

Abstract

Two centuries ago, immunization practices have become the greatest land mark in medical history as they significantly contributed to a decline in several major infectious diseases worldwide thus decreasing both the mortality and morbidity. Moreover, they have been able to eradicate small pox and eliminate poliomyelitis in most regions of the world. However, in recent years the general opinion towards vaccination began shifting due to the emergence of certain opposing views to it, questioning the vaccine's safety and efficacy. This study aims to shed light on the vaccination status in Lebanon by assessing the knowledge, attitude, awareness, and misconceptions among the Lebanese community concerning immunization. This article was a descriptive cross-sectional study that enrolled 388 randomly selected adults in Lebanon. A 23-item questionnaire was distributed among the Lebanese population in Beirut, Mont Lebanon, North, South, Al Bekaa and Al Nabatieh. In total, 388 participants completed the questionnaire. 53.4% were females, and 60% reached the university level. 96.4% agreed to vaccinate their children. 92.5% believed that vaccination protects from diseases, and a significant relationship was found with educational level (p=0.026). Moreover, 96.9% believed that vaccination is safe in general, but we didn’t find any significant relation with their educational level (p=0.13). 73.5% believed that vaccines should not be given in certain health conditions. Only 2.8% thought that vaccination causes learning disabilities like autism with no significant association with educational level (p=0.264). 34.6% thought that it shouldn’t be given to pregnant women. 3.1% assumed that vaccination can cause chronic illnesses and a significant relation was established with their educational level (p=0.01). Furthermore, 8.8% of the participants presumed that natural infection is better than immunization and 15.5% said that better hygiene is actually responsible for decreasing infections and not vaccines. However, both were not significantly related to educational level with (p=0.517) and (p=0.170), respectively. The Lebanese population’s attitude towards immunization was found to be mostly positive with a few misconceptions that didn’t seem to affect their vaccination practice. What influenced their practice was their fear of side effects which may be due to untrustworthy sources of knowledge such as media and family members. Therefore, implementing an awareness system regarding vaccination would further improve the Lebanese population’s attitude towards this subject.