The experiences of mothers during immunization visits and their potential influence on child immunization completion in Mityana Municipality, Mityana District

Abstract

Child immunization is a public intervention that has greatly reduced the mortality and morbidity rate of children against the infectious diseases. Mothers go through different experiences while at the hospital, some influence their decisions concerning immunization positively and other experiences influence them negatively. Mothers do take their children for the first vaccination at the health centre but some of them do not fully complete the immunization schedule of the children according to the national guidelines that are set by the Ministry of Health. However, little is known on how the different experiences that mothers face at the health centre actually has an influence on the completion of the immunization schedule. Little is known why there is a reduction in the consumption of the other immunization vaccines in the course of the immunization schedule even after the parents gaining knowledge of the importance of immunization to their children. Therefore, this study is aimed to discover the different experiences that mothers go through at health centres during the child immunization visits and how these experiences have an influence on their completion of the immunization schedule for their children. And the specific objectives of the study are to assess the positive experiences of the mothers during immunization visits, the negative experiences of the mothers during immunization visits, as well as how the peer influence among the parents affects the child immunization completion of the immunization schedule at Mityana Referral Hospital. The study was qualitative in nature in that it used a descriptive research design where the researcher was able to describe situations and events that mothers experience at the health centres, as well as during immunization visits at the different health centres that they go to for immunization. The study discovered that mothers experience more negative experiences at the health facility than positive experiences. And that the negative experiences do actually have an influence on the completion of the immunization schedule. The study also revealed that the peer influence among the mothers does positively influence them to take their children for immunization. More awareness should be carried to both the mothers as well as the fathers to increase on the uptake of the vaccinations even after having gotten the first round of vaccination. The negative experiences that mothers go through at the health centre should be worked on, so that they do not have any excuse for missing vaccinations but instead look forward to bringing their child for the entire immunization schedule.