Determinants of uptake of routine immunization among mothers of under five children in rural areas of North-Eastern Nigeria

Background: Immunization against the vaccine preventable diseases is one of components of Primary Health Care and the most cost-effective public health intervention in the history of mankind: but it has failed to meet the health needs of the majority of the people particularly in underdeveloped countries.

Method: this was a cross-sectional descriptive study that utilized interviewer administered questionnaire to 313 participants through multistage sampling. Data was analyzed using SPSS and a p-value of <0.05 was considered statistically significant.

Results: about half (50.5%) of the study participants had good level of aggregate knowledge scores, nearly one-third (34.2%) had positive attitude, and about one quarter (25.9%) had good uptake/practice of routine immunization. After adjusting for the confounding effects using logistic regression analysis; educational status of secondary school (AOR=1.99, 95% CI=1.43 – 33.65) and tertiary (AOR=4.04,95%CI=3.25 – 15.75), number of ANC visit of > 4 times (AOR=3.02, 95%CI= 1.76 – 41.45) monthly income of >N70,000.00 (AOR=5.01, 95%CI=3.25 – 35.77), good aggregate knowledge scores of routine immunization (AOR=4.06 95%CI=2.99-13.89), and positive aggregate scores on attitudes of routine immunization (AOR=5.03, 95%CI= 5.13-27.33) remained significant predictors of uptake/practices of routine immunization among the study participants.

Conclusions: most of the study participants had negative attitude on routine immunization that led to low uptake. It was recommended that more strategies that will ensure increase in uptake like health education and provision of adequate vaccine should be employed by the state government.