Evaluation of pregnant women's knowledge of tetanus toxoid vaccine during pregnancy in Al Diwaniyah city

This descriptive study was conducted to evaluate the knowledge of pregnant women about tetanus vaccine in Al-Diwaniyah, Iraq. The research was carried out with 169 pregnant women who applied to twenty primary health care centers affiliated to Iraq's Al-Diwaniyah Governorate between 3 April 2022 - 3 October 2022. A personal information form and Semi-structured Opinion Determination Form for Tetanus Vaccine were used to collect the research data. In the analysis of the data, descriptive statistics (number, percentage distributions) were evaluated. It was determined that 39.1% of the pregnant women who participated in the study were between the ages of 30-36, and 25.4% of them had primary school education. In addition, 58.6% of the pregnant women had tetanus vaccination during their pregnancy, 41.4% had only one vaccination during pregnancy, 58.0% had heard of tetanus before, 59.2% had tetanus bacteria living in the soil, 59.8% did not know that it was caused by animal saliva and dust, 59.8% did not know about tetanus vaccine, 59.8% did not know that tetanus should be vaccinated to protect against it, and 59.2% said that unhealthy practices when cutting the umbilical cord after birth could cause tetanus. It was determined that he did not know.