Knowledge and perception of parents on childhood immunization in Lugalo general military hospital, Tanzania
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Date
2013-08
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Kampala International University, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
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.
Description
A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the award of the Degree of Bachelor
of Science in Environmental Management of Kampala International University
Keywords
Knowledge, perception of parents, childhood immunization, Tanzania