Perceived Immunization’s Impacts on Under Five in Prevention of Morbidity and Mortality among Mothers at Federal Medical Centre Owo, Ondo State, Nigeria

Background: Childhood immunization is a key method of reducing childhood morbidity and mortality, and reducing the number and severity of communicable disease outbreaks. In addition, when childhood vaccines are delivered at the right time, they increase the protection of children from vaccine preventable diseases, minimize the risk of children getting infected and decrease the chance of outbreaks of the disease according to ―Determinants of compliance with child immunization among mothers of children under five years of age. This study analysed the mother’s perceived impacts of immunization on children under 5years in the prevention of infants’ morbidity and mortality and the factors that affect its uptake. Methods: The study adopted a descriptive type of non-experimental research design to study the perceived impacts of immunization on children under 5years in the prevention of infant’s morbidity and mortality and simple random technique was used to select 250 nursing mothers that use to attend post-natal clinic monthly in Federal Medical Centre (FMC) Owo, Ondo State, Nigeria. The instrument that was used for this study was a self-designed structured questionnaire and was administered by the researcher to the consented respondents. Data that was generated was analyzed using IBM Statistical Package for Social Sciences (IBM SPSS) version 25. Results generated were presented in frequency tables, charts (bar and pie charts) and inferential statistics was used to determine relationship between variables. Results: Majority (99.00%) of respondents have heard about child immunization before and majority (96.00%) of respondents defined immunization as the process whereby a person is made immune or resistant to an infectious disease. Also, majority (96.00%) of respondents believe that immunization can prevent all the childhood killer diseases. (46.00%) of respondents support that lack of information about the day of immunization can negative influence on the uptake of immunization among mothers while (54.00%) of respondents believed that forgetting the day of immunization can influence the uptake of immunization among mothers. Conclusion: Based on the findings of this study, enlightenment campaigns on the health benefits of childhood immunization, and other childhood immunization issues should be arranged for public consumption from time to time so that even the less educated can have access to childhood Immunization-related knowledge because the unimmunized children can promote the transmission of vaccine preventable disease which can lead to increase in morbidity and mortality rate among under five children.