Assessment of mothers' knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding the national immunization programme in Al-Diwaniyah city in Iraq

Background: Vaccination is a cost-effective public health strategy that reduces morbidity, death, and disability in children. However, many children do not receive the required immunizations. Understanding, the attitudes, and actions of mothers are crucial to vaccinating infants by their first birthday. Accordingly, successful immunization depends on parents' knowledge and attitude. Objective: To assess the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of mothers in Al-Diwaniyah city about child immunization, and the link between these factors and the demographic characteristics of the mother. Methods: The study was conducted on 390 mothers using the G.Power program. It took from 15 to 20 minutes to fill out the questionnaire, From reluctant mothers to health care centers in the Iraqi city of Diwaniyah during the period 2021-2022. Results: The results showed that mothers with higher educational levels had better knowledge, attitudes, and practices towards vaccination. 58.7 of the mothers had poor knowledge and the majority had good attitudes and bad practices toward vaccination. Conclusion: Study results show that mothers who, hesitate to go to primary health care centers have poor knowledge, positive attitudes, and rather poor practices. The most important proposal was to create an educational program taking into account the educational level of the mothers. 2022, 135 pages Key Words: Assessment, Mothers, Knowledge, Attitudes, Practices, Immunization Programme.