OBJECTIVES:

To assess the knowledge, attitude and practice of parents towards Rotavirus, Pneumococcal, Influenza and Hepatitis A vaccines and to assess the factors contributing for non-vaccination.

METHODS:

A cross- sectional observational study was conducted on parents of children between three to five years of age visiting the paediatric department of JSS Hospital, Mysuru. A validated questionnaire was used to collect the required information. Median split method and chi square test was used for the study analysis.

RESULTS:

Out of 207 study participants, children of 97.58% parents were fully immunized according to the EPI schedule, but the non- EPI vaccine coverage was 22.34%. Among the study population, 41.88% of mothers and 63.82% fathers found to have inadequate knowledge of non-EPI vaccines and the study participants belong to upper socioeconomic class demonstrated better knowledge (78.3%) where as lower least (5.29%) The higher rate of vaccination was observed with Hepatitis A (37.19%) followed by rotavirus vaccine (26.57%) among the vaccines under study. The knowledge level in the parents who have not vaccinated their children with non-EPI vaccines was found to be inadequate when compared with parents in the vaccinated group (76.36%). Lack of knowledge about non EPI vaccines (65.7%) were the major constraint for not vaccinating their childrenThere was a significant association between the non-EPI vaccination coverage and urban residential area (p<0.01), having two or more kids (p<0.05), educational status (graduate/postgraduate/profession/honors) of the parents(p<0.05), socio-economic class of upper/upper lower/upper middle (p<0.05) and adequate knowledge on non-EPI vaccines(p<0.05).

CONCLUSIONS:

Most of the sampled parents were unaware of the non-EPI vaccines. As the parental knowledge, attitude and practice about non-EPI vaccines are important determining factors for the immunization status of their child, future efforts by providing education on non-EPI vaccines are required to improve the parents confidence on non-EPI vaccines and to decrease the non- EPI vaccine hesitancy.