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11499

Knowledge, Beliefs and Practices of Parents towards Childhood

Article

Last updated: 03 Jan 2025

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Abstract

Background: vaccinations play an important role in protecting children against life threatening infections. During the past years, parents expressed concerns about the safety of routine vaccinations; resulting in non-compliance. Objective: this study aimed to assess the attitudes, beliefs and behaviors of parents towards vaccinations and the effects on vaccination practice in Najran region. Methods:  this is a cross sectional study was carried out by distributing questionnaire among the general public in Najran City, Saudi Arabia. The questionnaire consisted of the following sections: demographic profile, knowledge, beliefs, behaviors and open-ended questions regarding vaccination. Results: 668 parents were participated in this study; out of them 61.8% reported compliance with the vaccination schedule. Factors that were significantly associated with compliance included older age (p = 0.001), high education (p = 0.022) and better knowledge of the benefits of immunization. The main concerns about vaccinations were fear of weakening the child's immunity and non-necessity of some vaccinations. Causes that prevented compliance with vaccinations were lack of knowledge about their benefits (48.1%), illness of the child at time of vaccination (13.5%), travel (9.6%) and fear of side effects (7.7%). Sources of information that effectively changed parent's attitude included flyers (31.4%), social media (26.8%) and TV (25.9%).   Conclusion: most parents had an acceptable and good knowledge of the importance of vaccinations. However, fears and misconceptions resulted in non-compliance of a substantial percentage of the responders. Educational programs should address these causes of non-compliance and stress the importance of routine child vaccinations to improve knowledge, beliefs and attitude of parents.  

DOI

10.12816/0042954

Keywords

Vaccination, Immunization, Knowledge, Attitude, Questionnaire

Authors

First Name

Atheer R.

Last Name

Alyami

MiddleName

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Affiliation

Faculty of Medicine, Najran University, KSA

Email

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City

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Orcid

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First Name

Ghadi M.

Last Name

Alhashan

MiddleName

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Affiliation

Faculty of Medicine, Najran University, KSA

Email

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City

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Orcid

-

First Name

Iman A.

Last Name

Nasser

MiddleName

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Affiliation

Faculty of Medicine, Najran University, KSA

Email

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City

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Orcid

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First Name

Sarah R.

Last Name

Alyami

MiddleName

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Affiliation

Faculty of Medicine, Najran University, KSA

Email

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City

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Orcid

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First Name

Norah H.

Last Name

Al Mardhamah

MiddleName

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Affiliation

Faculty of Medicine, Najran University, KSA

Email

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City

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Orcid

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First Name

Maram H.

Last Name

Alyami

MiddleName

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Affiliation

Faculty of Medicine, Najran University, KSA

Email

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City

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Orcid

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First Name

Ahlam Y.S.

Last Name

Alyami

MiddleName

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Affiliation

Faculty of Medicine, Najran University, KSA

Email

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City

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Orcid

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First Name

Manar H.

Last Name

Alqahtani

MiddleName

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Affiliation

Faculty of Medicine, Najran University, KSA

Email

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City

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Orcid

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First Name

Batool M.

Last Name

Alwadei

MiddleName

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Affiliation

Faculty of Medicine, Najran University, KSA

Email

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City

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Orcid

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First Name

Aljouharah M.

Last Name

Alanazi

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Faculty of Medicine, Najran University, KSA

Email

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City

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Orcid

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Volume

70

Article Issue

1

Related Issue

2149

Issue Date

2018-01-01

Receive Date

2018-08-24

Publish Date

2018-01-01

Page Start

1

Page End

7

Print ISSN

1687-2002

Online ISSN

2090-7125

Link

https://ejhm.journals.ekb.eg/article_11499.html

Detail API

https://ejhm.journals.ekb.eg/service?article_code=11499

Order

1

Type

Original Article

Type Code

606

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

The Egyptian Journal of Hospital Medicine

Publication Link

https://ejhm.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

Knowledge, Beliefs and Practices of Parents towards Childhood

Details

Type

Article

Created At

22 Jan 2023