Knowledge of mothers and caretakers on adverse events following immunization in an urban community of Imphal

Context: Immunization is a great success in public health and has prevented a number of diseases. Although there are some adverse effects from certain vaccines, the benefits of vaccination have resulted in significant decline in infant and childhood morbidity and mortality. Parental concerns about perceived vaccine safety issues have led increasing number of parents to refuse or delay vaccination for their children. Hence, the knowledge regarding immunization in prevention of infectious disease among mothers and caretakers of under-five children is important. Aims: We aimed to assess the knowledge of mothers/caretakers of children under 5 years of age about adverse effects following immunization. Settings and Design: It was a cross-sectional study conducted in the urban field practice area of the Department of Community Medicine, Regional Institute of Medical Sciences, Imphal. Subjects and Methods: House-to-house survey was carried out and data were collected using a semi-structured questionnaire among the mothers and caretakers of children under 5 years of age. A total of 400 participants were interviewed in the study. Statistical Analysis Used: Data were entered in IBM SPSS Statistics 21 (IBM Corp. 1995, 2012) and summarized using descriptive statistics such as percentages and proportions. Chi-square test was employed to test the association between knowledge on immunization and selected variables of interest. P < 0.05 was taken as statistically significant. Results: Out of the 400 respondents, only 23.5% had adequate knowledge regarding immunization, 19% had average knowledge, and 57.5% had poor knowledge. Mothers who were above 30 years had better knowledge than those younger (P < 0.001). The higher the education level, the better was the knowledge, and this was also significant (P < 0.001). Christians were found to have better knowledge than Hindus (P < 0.001), and working mothers had better knowledge than homemakers (P < 0.001). There was no association between type of family and knowledge. 40.3% of the respondents were aware of adverse events following immunization (AEFI), out of which 37.9% acquired it mainly from the accredited social health activists/auxiliary nurse midwives, and the most common adverse event identified was fever (87.6%). 72.2% of the respondents who had experienced an adverse event following immunization in their children reported that the event developed within 6 h. Conclusions: Nearly one-fourth (23.5%) of the participants had good knowledge about immunization and nearly half of them were aware of AEFI. The main source of immunization and AEFI was reported to be peripheral health workers. Knowledge of the participants was significantly associated with mothers' age, educational status, and religion and employment status.