Knowledge,attitude and practice on adverse events following immunization among clinic vaccinators and parents of children receiving vaccination in Ganzhou city

Objective To examine the knowledge,attitude and practice (KAP) on adverse events following immunization (AEFI) among vaccination clinic medical staff and the parents of the children receiving vaccinations in Ganzhou city of Jiangxi province.Methods With stratified random cluster sampling,a questionnaire survey on KAP of AEFI was conducted among 1 274 parents of the children receiving planned immunization and 315 medical staff engaged in clinic vaccination in Ganzhou city between December 2015 and January 2016.Results Of the clinic vaccinators,98.41% knew the definition of AEFI,but only 26.67% knew the time limit for submiting an AEFI report card; of the parents,94.11% knew that a child should be observed at least 30 minutes after having a vaccination at a clinic,but only 61.30% knew the period of time for the occurrence of a majority of AEFI.Most of the clinic vaccinators (96.51%) and the parents (89.70%) thought it is necessary to carry out surveillance on AEFI,but 17.97% of the parents din not think it is necessary to report AEFI with mild symptoms.Among the clinic vaccinators,42.17% reported the experience of having observed suspected AEFI but not submitting a report and the experience was influenced by the times of receiving trainings in relation to AEFI; of the clinic vaccinators with the history of not submitting report for suspected AEFI,42.73% did not regard carrying out surveillance on AEFI as their routine work and the ratio was much higher than that for the clinic vaccinator without the history.Among all the parents,only 544 (42.70%)reported keeping their children under observation for 30 minutes or more at clinics after the vaccinations,with more rural parents reporting the activity than urban and town parents and influences of knowledge and attitude on AEFI.Of the 351 parents having observed suspected AEFI of their children,86.04%(302)reported the condition to relevant institutes or personnel.Conclusion Trainings on AEFI among clinic vaccinators,notification to parents of the children before an enforced vaccination,and health education on AEFI among the parents of children should be strengthened.