Knowledge and Attitude Towards Routine Childhood Immunization Among Caretakers of Children Below 5 Years in Kagano Village, Kisoro District.

Abstract

Background The study was carried out to determine the knowledge and attitude towards routine childhood immunization among caretakers of children below 5 years in Kagano village, Kisoro district. There are mainly two languages spoken in Kisoro district, Rukiga and Rufumbira/ Kinyarwanda and majority of people in kisoro are Bafumbira .The Batwa are the minority ethnic group in the district.. Many challenges were faced, including accessibility due to the distance from Kampala, language barrier as well as refusal to participate, bearing in mind that there are many Batwa people in this region, in which Batwa have not embraced education, thus there is a high rate of illiteracy. These residents face many problems, such as unemployment, low quality shelter and insufficient infrastructures and low literacy levels.

Problem Kagano village is less populated and majority of her inhabitants are peasant farmers. It is one of the hilly and cold regions in Uganda that has less educated. There are few wealthy people in this region, thus making it one of the poor regions.

Objective To determine the knowledge and attitude towards routine childhood immunization among caretakers of children below 5 years in Kagano village, Kisoro district. Methodology.

The study was carried out from the 25th October, 2016, to 15th November, 2016. 314 participants were interviewed using a researcher administered questionnaire, with the help of research assistants. A cross sectional, descriptive study was carried out to investigate the knowledge and attitude towards routine childhood immunization among caretakers of children below 5 years in Kagano village, Kisoro district community.

The data was collected using the researcher administered questionnaires that was presented to the respondents who consented and were willing to take part in the study. Pre-coded self administered questionnaires were administered by the researcher and the research assistants to collect data from the respondents. The data was presented in tables, bars and percentages.

Findings/Results The study findings showed poor immunization practices among the care takers of children below five years in Kagano. The average was found to be 61% immunization coverage of children below five years in Kagano. The recommended immunization coverage by WHO is 90%. The finding of this study revealed discrepancies in poor immunization practices as compared to the recommended coverage. A low level of knowledge on immunization was demonstrated in Kagano community. However, the respondents showed a positive attitude towards immunization of the children, with a significant number of respondents believing that immunization protects children against deadly diseases.

Conclusions and recommendations The care takers should be educated about the immunization. The education should be based on the diseases the children should be immunized against, and the immunization schedule. The attitude of the care takers should be boosted by putting more emphasis on the importance of immunization and the dangers of not immunizing the children below five years. The care takers should be motivated through community based health education to take the children below five years for immunization according to the Uganda immunization schedule.