Abstract:
Background: Since the introduction of effective and safe vaccines, vaccination has made
enormous contributions to public health. Throughout its time, the effectiveness of vaccination
programs were governed by multiple factors including vaccine hesitancy. Vaccine hesitancy is an
emerging public health concern which gained more attention in recent years. Magnitude of vaccine
hesitancy is not yet well known across many parts of the world.
Objective: To assess magnitude of childhood vaccine hesitancy and associated individual/social
group factors among parents in Degahbur Town, eastern Ethiopia, From February 1-30, 2017.
Methods: Community based cross-sectional study was conducted from February 1-30, 2017.
Cluster sampling technique was employed for the households to get a total sample size of 422 from
six kebeles randomly selected from the town’s ten kebeles. Structured questionnaire was used for
data collection. Pre-test of 5% of the total study participants selected outside the actual study area
was conducted by trained data collectors. Data was edited, coded, cleared and double entered using
EPIDATA 3.02 and later was exported to SPSS version 20 for analysis. Bivariate and multivariate
analysis was conducted to check the associations between outcome variable and explanatory
variables using binary logistic regression model.
Result: Out of the total 422 households selected, 412 (97.6%) have responded to the interviews.
From the 412 study participants, 46 (11.2%) were labelled as vaccine hesitant. Perceiving
vaccination as not health beneficial (AOR= 3.84, 95% CI (1.2, 13.6)), Beliefs in other alternatives
instead of vaccinating children (AOR= 4.8, 95% CI (1.5, 15.4)), beliefs that vaccination can’t
protect children from serious diseases (AOR= 5.82, 95% CI (1.3, 25.6)) and being daily laborer in
occupation (AOR= 12.9, 95% CI (2.6, 63.5) were independent predictors of vaccine hesitancy.
Conclusion and recommendation: Magnitude of childhood vaccine hesitancy in Degahbur town
is lower than that reported in other studies. In this study, Perceiving vaccination as not health
beneficial, beliefs in other alternatives instead of vaccination, beliefs that vaccines can’t protect
children from serious diseases and being daily laborer in occupation are individual/social group
factors associated independently with vaccine hesitancy. Community based regular health
education sessions and vaccination surveillance system should be advocated and established.
