The examination of the missed oppurtinity of vaccination in a low socioeconomic region of Ankara

Missed opportunity of vaccination is called as not immunization a child with a delayed immunization schedule, although the child is available for immunization when admitted to a health institution. The aim of this study is to determine the frequency and causes of missed opportunity of vaccination among patients that have admitted to a hospital providing service to a low socioeconomic region This descriptive study, admitted to the hospital between February-April 2012, in which a questionnaire was performed by interviewing face to face tecnique with 602 mothers, ages between 6 months – 6 years old children. The rate of missed opportunity of vaccination was determined as 8.5% (n=51)in our study. The mean age of mothers that missed the opportunity of vaccination was 28.4±4.8 years, whereas this was 27.1±4.4 years for the mothers that did not missed opportunity of vaccination (p=0.001). The most frequent reason for missed opportunity of vaccination was found as “not being asked for vaccination status while the patient visited health institution for a any cause” (37.2%). Other reasons were bad weather conditions (25.4%), false contraindications (19.6%), thinkig of vaccination is harmful (13.7%), and absense of that vaccine (3.9%). As a result, the most frequent reasons of preventable missed opportunity of vaccination of a child that admitted to a health institution for any cause was detected as not asking the vaccination status and false contraindication for vaccination. This study suggests that, health providers dealing with the children must examine the vaccination status of the children independently regardless of their application reasons and this method can reduce missed opportunity of vaccinations.