Title
Parental knowledge and acceptance of routine childhood immunization: Association with verified vaccination status - A cross-sectional study
Authors
Jeevitha Shetty Solur Venkatesh1 & Leena Balpande2,*
Affiliation
1Department of Medicine, Sapthagiri Institute of Medical Science, Karnataka, India; 2Department of Community Medicine, NKP Salve Institute of Medical sciences & RC and LMH, Nagpur, India, *Corresponding author
Jeevitha Shetty Solur Venkatesh - E-mail: jeevithayv4@gmail.com; Phone: +91 8861481443
Leena Balpande - E-mail: drleena29@gmail.com
Article Type
Research Article
Date
Received April 1, 2026; Revised April 30, 2026; Accepted April 30, 2026, Published April 30, 2026
Abstract
Incomplete childhood immunization remains a preventable contributor to morbidity despite established national vaccination programs. Therefore, it is of interest to evaluate parental knowledge and acceptance of routine childhood immunization and examined their association with verified vaccination status among 423 caregivers of children aged 0-59 months. Although 86.3% were aware of the national immunization program and 91.7% believed vaccines are necessary, only 46.8% correctly identified all vaccine-preventable diseases. Verified records showed 78.0% full immunization and higher parental awareness was strongly associated with complete vaccination (AOR 3.25, p < 0.001). Thus, we show that knowledge gaps and misconceptions persist which significantly influence timely immunization completion.
Keywords
Parental awareness, vaccine acceptance, childhood vaccines, vaccination status of children, routine vaccines, immunization coverage, vaccine hesitancy, public health, health education, parental attitude
Citation
Received April 1, 2026; Revised April 30, 2026; Accepted April 30, 2026, Published April 30, 2026
Edited by
A Prashanth
ISSN
0973-2063
Publisher
License
This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.
