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Abstract

Purpose: The objective of the study was to measure maternal health awareness and its effects on the coverage of child vaccination among rural Al-Mada’in district mothers in Iraq.

Design: A cross-sectional study with a community-based design was employed.

Subject: A total of 400 mothers aged 18 to 45 years with at least one child under five years of age participated in the study.

Setting: Rural areas of Al-Mada’in district, southeastern Baghdad, Iraq.

Measures: Structured interviewer-administered questionnaires were used to collect data on maternal awareness of nutrition, hygiene, antenatal care and immunization. Check Vaccinations cards of 392 children (98.0 percent) were verified.

Analysis :The analysis of the data was conducted in terms of descriptive statistics, chi-square tests, and logistic regression to find out the relationships between maternal awareness and the status of child immunization.

Results: Among the 392 children who had vaccination records, 68.0 (n = 272) children were fully vaccinated, 21.5 (n = 86) children were partly vaccinated and 10.5 (n = 42) children were not vaccinated at all. The results showed that mothers with strong health awareness had a significant high likelihood of having fully immunized children than mothers with low health awareness (χ2 = 18.42, p < 0.001).

Conclusion: Mother health education, incorporating vaccination promotion as part of the antenatal care, a nd intervention of rural health inequities are crucial measures to improve the outcomes of immunization.

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