Bushra Karim Javaid, Attia Bari, Samia Naz, Usaid Ahmed.
Immunization rates in children in relation to maternal education.
Pak Paed J Jan ;33(2):79-85.

Introduction: Immunization of children is essential in any community to reduce the morbidity and mortality from infectious diseases. Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey (2006-07) suggested an increase in immunization rate from 35% in 1990-91 to 47% in 2006-075.This improvement is still too low to be satisfactory. Objective: This study was planned to evaluate the relationship of immunization status with the maternal education and socioeconomic status. Materials and Methods: This cross sectional study collected data by interviewing mothers of children under 3 years of age who were either visiting the out patient department of the Children’s Hospital or were admitted in the same hospital during April the 1st to June 30th 2008. The results were analyzed using SPSS-12. Results: A total of 500 mothers of 320 male and 180 female children were interviewed. The children ranged from <1 month to 3 years of age. Socio-economically 67% of them belonged to the poor class, 16% to the lower middle class and 37% to the upper middle class. 52% of the mothers were illiterate, 26% had primary education, 16% had matriculated and 6% had 12 or more years of schooling. Regarding immunization at birth 385(77%) of the mothers knew the schedule, 111(23%) had incorrect knowledge and 4(1%) did not know that vaccination of the child should be carried out at birth. Knowledge of visits by the age of three and a half months was present in 141 (28%) of mothers, 132(26%) had incorrect knowledge and 227(46%) had absolutely no knowledge of vaccination schedule. Interval of one month between vaccines was correctly known to 261(52%), incorrectly to 29(6%) and not known to 210(42%) of the mothers. Information about the timing of measles vaccine (9 months) was correct in 187(37%) of mothers, incorrect in 38(8%) while 275(55%) of the mothers did not know about the measles vaccine. Awareness about antenatal tetanus vaccine was present in 334 (66.8%) while 166(33%) of mothers did not know about this recommendation. It was noted that awareness as well as correct knowledge about the vaccination schedule was the maternal education level and not the socioeconomic status. Educated mothers had correct knowledge regarding vaccination at birth as compared to illiterate mothers with a P- value of 0.002 and about the rest of the immunization schedule with P value of <0.001. The mothers of male and female children had similar knowledge regarding the immunization schedule. Socioeconomic status was not statistically significant regarding awareness about the immunization programme. Conclusion: In conclusion our immunization status is still very low and poor maternal education status is an important determinant factor for this.

PakMediNet -Pakistan's largest Database of Pakistani Medical Journals - http://www.pakmedinet.com