Immunisation status of children up to 15 years of age

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Immunisation status of children up to 15 years of age

Kruti Dhaval Gandhi¹, Monali T Bhorge², Harshal Dhabe².

¹Department of Internal Medicine, Mount Sinai Health System, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, USA,
²Department of Pediatrics, A.I.M.S Hospital, Aurangabad, Maharashtra, India.

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Abstract
Aim: To determine the immunisation status of children up to 15 years of age and factors associated with incomplete immunisation.
Materials and Methods: Three hundred seventy-seven children in the age group 1 month to 15 years, attending regular outpatient department (OPD) were screened for their immunization status by direct questionnaire method and checking the immunization medical records. Children were divided based on their age in to 3 groups viz. <1yr, 1 to 5yr, >5yr. Information regarding their residence, education status of their parents, community, various vaccines, and whether immunization status was complete, or incomplete was recorded.
Results: The mean age of children ranged from 3.68 +- 3.47 years. Twenty-three percent of the infants were incompletely immunised (p=0.006). Twenty seven percent of Muslims and 28% of Buddhists were incompletely immunised (P=0.003). Illiteracy in father and mother is associated with incomplete immunisation by 34.38% (P=0.0004) and 31.15% (P<0.001), respectively. Main reason for incomplete immunisation was non-availability of vaccine, as seen in 57.7% of cases. Other reasons include immunisation facility not available locally (32.7%), parents refusing immunisation for their children (30.8%), child unwell (5.8%), parent out of town (3.8%). We did not find any gender bias in our study. Also, in our study, no vaccine in universal immunization programme (UIP) had lower coverage as compared to other vaccines.
Conclusion: Immunization status in children in India needs to be improved. Religious beliefs, literacy rates in parents seem to affect the immunization completion in the child.

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