Background: The childhood immunization has shown significant disease aspects and mortality prevention during the last decades particularly among children under 5 years of age. Thus, the knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) of parents toward immunization is a vital issue to improve the children health as well as prevention of diseases. The aim of the present study was to assess the KAP of the parents regarding child immunization in Saudi Arabia.
Methodology: It is a cross-sectional online survey study that was carried out in 500 parents having at least one child in Saudi Arabia for 2 months from October and November 2018. The questionnaire included four different parts. The first part involved questions about the demographics as age, education, working status, and a number of children. The other three parts included questions regarding KAP of parents toward vaccination.
Results: Parents had good knowledge (7.9±1.2), positive attitude (42.8±7.4), and positive practice (46.7±4.6) regarding the child immunization. The higher KAP level was significantly related to female gender, urban area residence, and higher educational degree. Parents age between 31 and 40 years old was significantly related to knowledge (p=0.02). Having more than five children was markedly associated with knowledge (p=0.04) and attitude (p=0.03).
Conclusion: Most of study participant parents had good KAP toward vaccination which was correlated to the female gender, urban area residence, and higher educational degrees.
Key words: Immunization, parents, knowledge, attitude, practice (KAP), vaccination, childhood, Saudi Arabia
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