A Comparison Of Barriers To Childhood Immunization Among Parents In Some Selected Rural And Urban Wards In Fune Lga, Yobe State, Nigeria

Introduction: Immunization continues to remain as one of the most effective public health intervention and strategy used in preventing and averting diseases, morbidities and mortalities caused by Vaccine Preventable Diseases (VPD’s) in recent time. Despite its availability and affordability, many parents/caregivers continue to be hesitance in vaccinating their children in some parts of Yobe state, Nigeria. Methods: A mixed method study was carried out among parents and caregivers of children under five years in some selected rural and urban wards in Fune Local Government Area in Yobe state, Nigeria. A multi- stage sampling was used in selecting four wards, and total of 300 participants were selected across the wards using simple random sampling for the structured questionnaires. Purposive sampling was used in selecting parents and caregivers for the Focus Group Discussions (FGD’s), and religious and traditional leaders for Key Informant Interviews (KII’s). Quantitative data was analyze using Statistical Software for Social Science (SPSS) while qualitative data was analyzed through thematic analysis using Delve software for analyzing qualitative data. Results: Accessibility barriers such as lack of transportation, transportation cost, long waiting time and busy schedule during immunization sessions were identified in both rural and urban wards respectively. Concern barriers such as fear of side effects, number of vaccines administered to a child at once were identified in rural wards. Significance differences were observed between urban and rural wards with concern subscale score (P<0.001, d=0.38) and total subscale (P=0.019, d= 0.27). Conclusion: Findings in the study indicates the need for new strategies for creating awareness by relevant stakeholder through active engagement of traditional and religious leaders. There is need for improve service delivery to reduce waiting time, increase incentives to motivate parents/caregivers and provision of transportation vehicles to reduce transportation challenges and cost.