: Throughout the globe, vaccines have saved countless lives, improved health and wellbeing. Vaccine hesitancy at the individual and community level risks the public health consequences of vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks.1. To find out the proportion of vaccine hesitancy 2. To determine the factors contributing to vaccine hesitancy for childhood vaccinations in urban slums of Bengaluru Rural District, Karnataka. A community based cross sectional study was carried out in 8 urban slums of Bengaluru Rural District from August 2019 to September 2020. Children aged 0-59 months were primary subjects and mothers / primary caregivers of children 0-59 months were secondary study subjects. Data Collection was done using a predesigned, pretested questionnaire and by reviewing immunization cards. Data analysis was done using SPSS version 20. The association between Vaccine hesitancy and predictor variables was tested by using chi –square test. Vaccine hesitancy was present among 75% of the mothers / primary care givers. Main Reasons for Vaccine hesitancy reported were fear of vaccination side effects, sickness of child, unaware of availability of vaccines, felt unnecessary to get child vaccinated, The present study reported delay in vaccination for the birth dose of BCG (66%), Hepatitis B (40%); OPV (9%). Vaccine hesitancy was found to be more in nuclear families, low socio-economic class, in female children, birth order of 3 or higher, among mothers who had primary education and are homemakers. This difference was found to be statistically significant. Among the characteristics of children, the gender of the child and birth order was found to be significantly associated with vaccine hesitancy. One of the major reasons found in this study for Vaccine hesitancy was concern regarding safety. Therefore vaccination programmes and policies have to feature strong community engagement strategies to increase awareness about the vaccines and remove fears.
India has the largest population of adolescents in the world (1/5th of world’s adolescents)with4-33% prevalence of mental health disorders. The present study was conducted to assess the mental health status of adolescent school going children in Karnataka. A cross sectional study was conducted among 375 adolescent school going children aged 10-15 years in a private school in Karnataka (June-August 2019). Students were interviewed by pretested questionnaire after obtaining informed assent from the school administrators and primary care givers. The questionnaire included 4 different domains viz., Educational, Physical health, Emotional and Social factors. Scores ranged between 0 – 41 and interpreted as higher the scores better the mental health status of student. Data was analyzed using SPSS software version 24.Out of 375 participants, 48.8% were girls and 51.2% were boys with mean age of 12.7 yrs. Overall 12.5% students had abnormal mental health status, which was more among girls (15.4%) compared to boys (9.9%) and it was statistically significant (p < 0.021). Of 4 domains, physical health factor was most affected (17.3%), followed by educational factor (15%). Gender-wise, educational domain was most affected among boys (17.7%, p = 0.034) and physical health domain among girls (20.2%, p<0.001), which was statistically significant.This study shows that abnormal mental health status is prevalent among adolescents and more among girls. Of the 4 domains, Physical health was most affected. This problem needs addressal with well defined school-based intervention programs.
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