Mothers are the major role players with regard to their childrens immunisation. The aim of this study is to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice of mothers of children below 5 years of age with regard to immunisation in Northern State, Sudan. This was a cross-sectional survey which was conducted in three villages in 2016. All mothers having at least one child below the age of 5 years were included. Data were collected by interviews using a self-structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics were displayed and chisquare test was used to assess associations. A total of 127 mothers of 191 children were included. The mean knowledge score about the names of vaccines/diseases prevented was 3.47 out of 10. The most correctly named vaccines by the mothers were measles (87.4%) and polio (86.6%), whereas the least ones were hepatitis (7.1%) and diphtheria (8.7%). The majority (99.2%) of the mothers had a positive attitude. The mean knowledge score about the timing of doses was 4.12 out of 5. The most correctly timed dose by the mothers was the dose at 6 weeks dose 1 (96.1%) and the least one was the dose at birth dose 0 (60.6%). About half (48.7%) of the children were completely immunised, 46% were only missing their dose 0, mostly because of closed vaccination units on the day of birth (73.6%), and 5.3% were incompletely immunised. Hospital delivery, availability of vaccination card and good socioeconomic status were associated with complete immunisation status, with p-values equal to 0.00, 0.00 and 0.03, respectively. Educating mothers about immunisation, increasing the days of immunisation and providing outreach services for home-delivered newborns are important interventions to increase the immunization coverage.
Key words: Children, under 5, Immunization, Mothers, Sudan
|
