CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY ON CHILDREN IN PAEDS OUTPATIENT DEPARTMENT: EVALUATION OF EXPANDED PROGRAM ON IMMUNIZATION COVERAGE

Background: expanded program on immunization is carried out to protect all children against nine vaccine preventable diseases; still many children don't receive vaccination at proper age. The purpose of EPI is to initiate a collective effort to reduce the mortality results from EPI target disease by immunizing children of age less than two years. Hence, monitoring immunization coverage performance is essential for improving the quality of services and current immunization status. Aims and objectives: Assess immunization coverage and dropout rate. Elicit reasons for immunization failure in children less than two year coming to Paeds outpatient department Services Hospital Lahore. Study design: cross-sectional study Study setting: PAEDS Outpatient department of Services Hospital Lahore. Study duration: January to February 2016: 1 month Materials and methods: Non probability convenient sampling technique was used. Every Mother of the child less than two years was personally interviewed and a preformed questionnaire was filled in. Data was analyzed using SPSS. Results: 88.7% children received complete immunization till required for their age at proper time according to expanded program on immunization schedule while 7.2% %children were partially immunized and 4.1 % children were non-immunized. Reasons behind incomplete immunization were 27.3% parents of children were not willing for immunization while reasons given by parents for child being not immunized were lack of information in 9.1%, false beliefs in 18.2%, vaccination center not approachable in 45.5%, child sickness in 18.2% and unavailability of vaccinator in 9.1%. Conclusion: The immunization coverage among children was found to be comparatively high and the major reasons for failure of immunization among children were inaccessibility of vaccination center, misconceptions among parents, child sickness and lack of information. Keywords: Expanded program on immunization, Coverage, Failure reasons.