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A Cross Sectional Descriptive Study to Assess Awareness about Childhood Immunization amongst Pregnant Women Residing In Field Practice Area of a Primary Health Center in Maharashtra

Original Research Article Introduction: Immunization is one of the most successful and cost-effective public health interventions for reducing childhood morbidity and mortality. One third of the deaths among under-fives are preventable by vaccines. All countries in the world have an immunization programme to deliver selected vaccines to targeted beneficiaries specially focusing on pregnant women, infants and children who are at high risk of diseases preventable by vaccines. In India still there are large numbers of children who are not immunized which are being vaccinated through Intensified Mission Indradhanush Programme. This underlines the need for further improvement in immunization programme implementation. Objectives: To assess the knowledge, attitude and practices of pregnant women about childhood immunization & to educate them regarding the immunization schedules and importance of immunization. Material and Methods: It is A Cross-sectional descriptive study conducted in a field practice area of a Primary Health Centre (PHC) of a rural area. All pregnant mothers registered with PHC during study period were identified and interviewed using pre designed and pre tested questionnaire by house to house survey. Statistical analysis: Mean, Percentages and SD are calculated. Results: Majority of pregnant mothers are in age group of 21 to 30 years & literate. Still they heard only about polio, measles, rubella and hepatitis vaccine. None of them have heard about mumps and influenza. 37.9% women are primigravida and 48.4% are second gravida. Main source of information is ASHA (62.1%) followed by AWW (15.8%). Majority of them prefer to immunize their children in government hospitals. Knowledge of women regarding the use of vaccines to prevent particular diseases is poor. Most of women (96.8%) believed that there are no side effects of vaccination. But they consider that their child should not get vaccinated in conditions like cold and fever. Attitude towards vaccination is satisfactory. Only 62 percent of mothers who already have first child had followed immunization schedule. Conclusion: Study reflects that, pregnant women had less knowledge regarding immunization. Attitude towards vaccination is satisfactory but practice is poor. Antenatal period needs to be utilized to inculcate importance of complete immunization as per schedule.