Knowledge, attitude and practices among caregivers of children under five years about routine immunization

Objectives: To assess knowledge, attitude, and practices among caregivers of children under-five years regarding routine immunization, and to find out the relationship between their knowledge, attitude, and practices with selected demographic characteristics of them. Methodology: A descriptive design is employed throughout the present study in Baghdad, Iraq from October 30, 2023 to May 2, 2024. A non-random convenient sample was taken, 327 of the caregivers who visited malls were participated after their consent. Interview was engaged with predesigned questionnaire. The caregivers who gave care for children under five years were interviewed. Analysis of data was completed by descriptive statistics. Results: Majority of the participants had high level of knowledge about transmitted diseases such as measles & poliomyelitis that can be prevented by vaccines, and moderate level of knowledge about diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, and viral hepatitis type B are vaccine- preventable diseases. There was highly significant correlation among overall knowledge, attitude, and practices of the study sample at p-value 0.000. knowledge with other variables such as age at p-value 0.021, employment at p-value 0.000, education at pvalue 0.004. Conclusions: Children's caregivers need to be educated about the newer vaccines and the changes made in immunization schedule by the health care workers. Caregivers need more attention to increase their trust in health services that were provided for their children.