Knowledge of adverse events following immunization, its prevalence and actions of mothers of children aged 0–23 months in a tertiary health institution in Jos, North Central Nigeria

BACKGROUND: Adverse Event Following Immunization (AEFI) is any unfavorable event occurring following vaccination related to the vaccine administration and or its handling. AEFI can lead to death or a life-threatening condition requiring hospitalization with or without permanent sequel. Hence, this study was conducted to determine the knowledge of AEFI among mothers of children aged 0–23 months, its prevalence and actions of mothers of following AEFIs. METHODOLOGY: This was a cross-sectional study conducted among 400 mothers of children aged 0–23 months between November 2017 and April 2018 using quantitative method of data collection. IBM SPSS version 20 was used for data analysis where chi square was used as a test of association a P-value of ≤ 0.05 considered statistically significant. RESULTS: The mean age of the respondents in the study was 29.0 ±5.3 years with 222 (55.5%) demonstrating good knowledge of AEFI. The prevalence of AEFI was found to be 46.5% with fever as the most experienced AEFI accounting for 90.3% of all cases experienced followed by pain and swelling mentioned by 141 (75.8%) and 26 (14.0%) respectively. Only 26 (14.5) of the mothers were adjudged to have taken appropriate action following the experience of AEFI in their children. Appropriateness of actions taken by the mothers following the occurrence of AEFI was influenced by the mother’s employment status (COR= 3.84; 95% CI=1.366–10.575; P=0.007). CONCLUSION: This study has demonstrated a sub-optimal level of knowledge of AEFI among the mothers of children aged 0–23 months with a relatively high self-reported prevalence and poor level of appropriateness of actions taken following AEFI.