Knowledge, Attitude, and Practices of Parents About Immunization of Infants and Its Associated Factors in Wadla Woreda, North East Ethiopia, 2019

INTRODUCTION: Improving infant immunization coverage and timeliness is a key health policy objective in many developing countries such as Ethiopia. Despite this, full immunization coverage in Ethiopia becomes low with the concurrent significant burden of vaccine-preventable diseases among infants. A previously published study acknowledged that parental knowledge, attitude, and practice towards infant immunization are vital issues to improve coverage and influence uptake. OBJECTIVE: To assess parents’ knowledge, attitude, practice, and its associated factors regarding immunization of infants at Wadla Woreda, North East Ethiopia, 2019. MATERIAL AND METHODS: A community-based cross-sectional study was employed among 418 parents from March to April 2019 in Wadla Woreda, North East Ethiopia. A stratified sampling technique was used to approach the study subjects. An interviewer-administered structured questionnaire was used. The collected data were cleaned, coded, and entered in EPI-Info 7.2 and transferred to SPSS version 25.0 for analysis. Binary logistic regression analyses were performed to identify variables having a significant association with parental knowledge, attitude, and practice. Variables with a p-value of ≤0.05 and AOR with 95% CI were declared as having a statistically significant association during multivariable logistic regression analysis. RESULTS: In this study, 65.1%, 57.3%, and 55.3% of the parents had good knowledge, a favorable attitude, and good practice towards infant immunization, respectively. Parent’s educational status (AOR=5.330), urban residency (AOR=2.788), favorable attitude (AOR=4.308) and got immunization service two–three times (AOR=3.227) and four–five times (AOR=2.254) were statistically associated with knowledge of parents. Parents who attend primary school [AOR=0.451) and secondary school [AOR=0.320), parents who were mothers of the child [AOR=3.813), and respondents who had good knowledge about infant immunization (AOR= 4.592) were significantly associated with a favorable parental attitude. Infant immunization practice was significantly associated with parental education who attend primary school (AOR=2.513), secondary school (AOR=2.546) and higher education (AOR=11.988), parents who had good knowledge of infant immunization (AOR= 4.206), and short waiting time (AOR=3.881). CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION: Parental KAP towards infant immunization was found to be lower than most of the study findings quoted in this study. Improving the knowledge, attitude, and practice of parents about immunization and vaccine-preventable diseases was recommended by providing health education and health promotion interventions.