Immunization status of children less than 5 years attending to tertiary care hospital out-patient department in an urban area, prospective-descriptive study

Abstract

Background: The Indian population has swollen to 1.21 billion.1 Children below 5 years constitute 12-15% of this population. To determine the immunization status of children <5 years of age attending Tertiary care hospital Outpatient department and the various factors influencing immunization status. Methods: Design of the study was Prospective-descriptive hospital based study. Patients/subjects were one thousand children <5 years of age. Subjects were selected by random sampling method, Immunization status of these children was analyzed and the cause for partial and non-immunization were studied. Information on socio demographic factors and immunization status was analyzed. Results: One thousand children under 5 years were studied for distribution of gender, age, residence, socio-economic status, religion, literacy, type of family, order of birth, type of delivery, number of children, age and occupation of mother. Of all parameters studied there were significant correlation between low maternal education, paternal education , low maternal age (15-20years), agriculture, higher birth order , joint family, low socio-economic, Muslim followed by Hindu, Christian, rural population, age group of 1-5 years, total number of children >2 with partial immunization. Conclusions: We observed that only 32.6% children were fully immunized. Financial problem, Lack of knowledge, immunisation at government hospital, ignorance seems to be a major contributing factors for under immunization. Female gender, rural back ground, belonging to Muslim community, low socioeconomic status, low maternal age, uneducated parents and being from joint family are the other contributing factors for the poor immunization coverage and were found to be statistically significant. Our study shows children had 100% immunised for BCG, OPV-0, OPV-1 and DPT-1.