Knowledge, Attitudes, Practices, and Compliance toward the National Immunization Program

Description

Abstract (English)

Infants and children still cannot decide on their immunization. Hence, their primary caregivers act as their proxy decision-makers, making their role in children's immunization crucial. In the last thirty (30) years, Philippines’ vaccine coverage remained at 70% to 80%, and the program's goal of fully immunizing children by at least 95% has never been met, showing low acceptance and performance coverage. Therefore, this research aimed to assess primary caregivers' knowledge, attitudes, practices, and compliance (KAPC) toward the National Immunization Program (NIP) in selected Barangays of Solana, Cagayan. The researchers utilized descriptive quantitative research design to describe the respondents’ profile and have an in-depth analysis of their KAPC toward NIP. The researchers used quota sampling to select 300 respondents, where 50 respondents for each barangay were selected based on the top three barangays with highest compliance rate, which are Barangays Lanna, General Balao, and Cadanaan. Sampaguita, Bauan West, and Iraga were also included as they are the barangays with the highest non-compliance rate. The respondents of this study were primary caregivers. The study used a questionnaire based on the study of Quintos et al. (2022), which was categorized into five parts. Overall, the findings revealed that the respondents are knowledgeable, have a positive attitude, and exhibited excellent practice. However, their overall compliance toward the NIP is only partially compliant, and despite this positive result on their KAP, it was found that primary caregivers were non-compliant with MMR 1 and MMR 2 vaccines. Moreover, there is a significant difference between respondents' practice and age, respondents' attitudes and relationship of the child to the respondent and their religion. Furthermore, there is also a significant relationship between respondents' knowledge and compliance. Therefore, the researchers recommend that future studies look for other factors that could affect the compliance of primary caregivers towards NIP.