KNOWLEDGE AND ATTITUDE OF NURSING MOTHERS TOWARDS IMMUNIZATION OF CHILDREN IN JAMA’A LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF KADUNA STATE

Abstract

The study was carried out to help find out the knowledge, attitude of nursing mothers towards immunization of children in Jama’a Local Government Area of Kaduna State. The survey research design was used for this study the population of the study is approximated to be over 1,000 nursing mothers in Jama’a Local Government Area of Kaduna State. Out of this a total sample sizes of 210 were used to elicit information on the knowledge of nursing mothers on immunization, the attitude of nursing mother towards immunization, the problem associated with immunization among nursing mothers the factors influencing immunization and the benefits of immunization the instrument was given to three experts in research, one from test and measurement and two from the department of physical and health education of the faculty of education University of Jos, whose input on the instrument were very helpful. It was pretested using 30 respondents with similar characteristics that were not part of the main study. A reliability coefficient of 0.76 was obtained using test-retest method which was seen as reliable figure for the instrument to be used for be present study. The result shows that in all the items, the respondents had very high knowledge except, “the home is a good place for immunization” 87 (41.42%), has positive attitude in a statement except “I believe immunization prevents childhood diseases (X= 4.5), the father decides on immunization (X= 3.5) and I choose to immunize my child (X=3.0) again, the respondents accepted that all items mentioned has more than fifty percent response all the factors mentioned were accepted by the respondents as they had over fifty percent except, “religion has a significant influence on immunization 74 (35.23%), and there is poor implementation of immunization policies 82 (39.04%), and they accepted that immunization has benefits to the child as all items has over fifty percent respondents it was recommended among others that the statement that some of respondents are too busy to take their child for immunization, should be rated by health personnel so that they can organize workshops, as well as we films and enlighten nursing mothers to the importance and dangers advocated with immunization of children in the community.