Medical Microbiology & Diagnosis

Factors Influencing Fully Vaccination Coverage among Children Aged 12 to 23 Months in Debre Markos Town, Amhara Region, Ethiopia, 2018

Abstract

Wassachew Ashebir* and Yimenu Belachew

Introduction: One of the most important and cost-effective public health interventions to reduce child mortality and morbidity is vaccination. Despite a continued global effort in providing vaccinations, there are still cases of inadequate vaccination coverage especially in low-income countries. With the high under-five mortality in Ethiopia (67 deaths per 1,000 live births), only 38.5% of the children (12 to 23 months) had received all the recommended vaccines. Hence, the purpose of this study was to assess factors influencing fully vaccination coverage among children aged 12 to 23 months in Debre Markos town.

Methods: A community based cross-sectional study was employed among 389 children aged 12-23 months in Debre Markos town from January 1, 2018 to February 1, 2018. Systematic random sampling technique was used to select the study participants. Data was collected using face to face interviewer administered structured questionnaires. Then, the collected data was entered, coded and cleaned into EPI Data version 3.1 and exported to SPSS version 20.0 for data analysis. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression was done to assess the association of factors with full vaccination coverage. Adjusted odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals were calculated, and p-values<0.05 were considered to indicate statistical significance.

Results: This study revealed that fully vaccination coverage among children aged 12 to 23 months was 76.9%. Fully vaccination coverage was significantly associated with women’s level of education (AOR=1.2, 95%CI (1.41-2.42), place of delivery of the index child (AOR=3.28, 95%CI (1.38-3.67), maternal knowledge on vaccine and vaccine preventable disease (AOR=4.12, 95%CI (3.0-10.6) and ANC service utilization (AOR=5.04, 95%CI (1.35-12.06).

Conclusion: Fully vaccination coverage among children aged 12 to 23 months in the studied area was low. Therefore, health extension workers should work on improvements in women’s educational status, encourage mothers to have ANC follow-up and institutional delivery and they should discuss vaccination with mothers in order to improve their knowledge on vaccine preventable disease and the advantage of complete vaccination services.