Assessment of Factors Associated with Dropout for Pentavalent Vaccine in Tertiary Care Hospital of Kathmandu, Nepal

Abstract

Immunization is one of the most cost-effective public health measures as it has helped in huge reduction of disease, disability and death from different infectious diseases in children by protecting them from vaccine preventable diseases. The current study aimed to study factors associated with dropout for pentavalent vaccine in tertiary care hospital of Kathmandu. A longitudinal observational study using purposive sampling technique was conducted among 196 infants. The information was obtained using self-constructed structured questionnaire from parents visiting Community Medicine OPD of Nepal Medical College Teaching Hospital. The information regarding socioeconomic characteristics of mother, gender of the infant, place of delivery of child, birth order and reasons for dropout of pentavalent third dose were taken. The dropout of third dose pentavalent vaccine was mainly seen in infant of parents living in rented house and according to gender wise, dropout was high among male infants. The different reasons for dropout of vaccine were busy parents, forgotten date, visit to other immunization centres and sick infants. Among these, the main reason for dropout of vaccine was due to infants getting sick during the time of immunization. The dropout rates between first and third dose of pentavalent vaccine were 26.3% and 30.4% respectively for two consecutive months and the overall dropout rate was 28.35%. Also, literacy level of the mother was directly associated with the immunization visit of the infant as, maximum number of infants of illiterate mother were absent for third dose of pentavalent vaccine as opposed to no absentee among master degree holding mothers. Thus, the present study provides valuable information regarding the factors associated with dropout for pentavalent vaccine.

Vaccination dropout among children in Sub-Saharan Africa: Systematic review and meta-analysis

“…Comparatively, our study’s findings were lower than those of research conducted in Nepal (28.5%) 61 and India (26.1%). 62 The study setting, time gap and the sample size across the studies of may be contributing factors to this variation.…”

Up-to-date Immunization Coverage among Infants Attending a Clinic at a Tertiary Hospital During the Second Wave of COVID-19 Pandemic in Kathmandu, Nepal

“…However, when compared to a previous study carried out in the pre-pandemic period at the same clinic, a lower dropout rate (10% vs 29%) was seen. 7 Several global reviews and country-level studies had reported a decline in the number of administered vaccine doses. Moreover, the largest decline (57%) was observed in the South-East Asia region in the number of administered doses of diphtheria-pertussistetanus-containing vaccine (DTP3) and Measles vaccine (MR1) in the first half of 2020.…”

“…The estimated sample size was calculated assuming a 29% drop-out rate for the third dose of Pentavalent vaccine based on a study carried out in our clinic. 7 Within 95% confidence intervals and a 7% margin of error, the minimum sample size was calculated to be 161 infants. Infants who received BCG from 1 st April 2021 to 31 st July 2021 at the clinic with a minimum of two visits over a one-year period were included in the study.…”