Knowledge And Perception Of Parents On Childhood Immunization In Lugalo General Military Hospital, Tanzania

ABSTRACT

Immunization is the process of conferring increased resistance to an infectious disease by a

means other than experiencing the natural infection. It is a simple, safe and effective way of

protecting children and adults against some diseases that can cause serious illnesses and sometimes

deaths. And if they are protected, they will not be able to pass the infection on to other people

especially very young babies who have not been fully immunized yet. Childhood immunization is

an act of inducing immunity to a child by applying a vaccine that almost guarantees protection from

many major diseases. Immunization remains one of the most important public health interventions

and a cost effective strategy to reduce both the morbidity and mortality associated with infectious

diseases and to keep a child health from different types of maladies and malaise.

The study aimed at investigating the knowledge and perception of parents on childhood

immunization in Lugalo General Military Hospital along Kawe ward community in Tanzania by

analyzing the hypothesis that determined the relationships between socio-demographic variables

and awareness of childhood immunization and relationships between socio-demographic variables

and perception to childhood immunization.

This was done through a micro economic approach by combining both theoretical

considerations and strong empirical evidence in descriptive cross-sectional study involved 80

parents responded among the Kawe ward comminty members in proportion to their importance in

making the whole community of Kawe, were selected by using a stratified sampling technique.

The study established that however high percentage of the respondents were aware about

childhood immunization and its importance and that childhood immunization could prevent

childhood sickness (95%), but more than half percentage of the respondents (56.3%) had incorrect

knowledge about childhood immunization schedule, (56.3%) had no exact knowledge of vaccine

formulation and in the same time (25%) and (50%) of the respondents strongly agreed and agreed

that fears of monor side effects plays a great hurdles for adoption of vaccination.

The need for policy guidelines to manage all aspects of risk-knowledge and perception of

parents on childhood immunization in Kawe community and in the healthcare settings most

especially at the primary health care level need to be considered.