Magnitude of Childhood Vaccine Hesitancy and Associated Individual/Social Group Factors among Parents in Degahbur Town, Somali Regional State, Ethiopia

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.