Neugeborenen- und Kindermedizin

Abstrakt

Parents’ Knowledge, Attitude and Practice towards Childhood Vaccination, Medina, Saudi Arabia 2017

Samah Omar Alfahl and Khulood Mohammed Alharbi

Background: During the past few years, physicians in the kingdom were facing a growing number of parents who are questioning the safety and necessity of routine childhood vaccination because of some myths and misconceptions about vaccination.

Objective: Our study aimed to assess knowledge, attitude and practice regarding childhood vaccination and their associated factors among saudi parents in AlMadinah region.

Methods: An Observational, Cross sectional study was conducted during the period (January-march 2017) in AlMadinah, Saudi Arabia. Parents of children aged from 1 month to 7 years who lives in AlMadinah were invited to participate in filling electronic questionnaire. The questions were formulated based on questions and answers published by the Ministry of Health Saudi Arabia website. Data was collected by trained medical students of Taibah University from the parents. A representative sample of 614 of participants living in various area of AlMadinah was selected randomly.

Results: 614 participants included in the study, Majority of them were mothers (86%). Most of them (58.1%) had their information regarding child vaccination from medical staff, followed by social media (17.4%) and books (14%). The results revealed that almost half of parents (N=310) had adequate knowledge regarding child vaccination. Attitude towards child vaccination was positive in more than half (N=346) of the parents. Most of the parents in the study (85.7%) believed that Compliance with the MOH vaccination schedule is very important but only 43% of them disagreed that vaccine doesn’t give child immunity against infectious diseases. Majority of parents had good practice toward vaccination (N=570, 92.8%) reported vaccination of their children according to the MOH vaccination schedule.

Conclusion: The study showed that parents had an acceptable knowledge and attitudes on some aspects related to childhood vaccination. However, gaps in both knowledge and attitudes were identified. Most of parents had good practice toward vaccination. Educational interventions are required to improve parents’ knowledge on the vaccination.