Uptake Of Childhood Immunization Among Mothers Of Under-Five In Southwestern Nigeria

Background Immunization preventable childhood diseases are a major cause of the under five mortality in Nigeria. Objective The study was aimed at determining the awareness, attitude of mothers of under-five towards immunization and proportion of children fully immunized in the 12-28 month age. Methods The study was a descriptive cross sectional household survey of perception of mothers with children under 5 years of age to immunization in Igbo-Ora, Oyo state. A cluster sampling of the mothers were carried out. Results A total of 503 mothers were interviewed with a mean age of 27.3 years and SD of 5.7 years. The mean age of the children was 19.7 months with a SD of 14.4 months. Almost all the women interviewed (99%) were aware of the immunization with 65.7% obtaining information at antenatal clinics. A good proportion of children aged 12 to 33 months were fully immunized (76.9%), 30% were partially immunized and 0.7% were not fully immunized. Majority had good attitudes to immunization with 84.3% having attitude scores of 75% and above. Immunization of the children was not significantly associated with the socio-demographic characteristics at 5% level of significance. The reasons reported for not completing immunization include long waiting on queues (46.1%), payment at private clinics (20.2%) and distance (17.7%). Conclusion The role of antenatal clinic as a source of awareness should further be strengthened by training more health workers to work since majority of the respondents got informed about immunization in the antenatal clinics.