Parents' knowledge and attitudes toward seasonal childhood influenza vaccination for children aged below 5 years in Hilla city-Iraq

Background: Seasonal influenza is an acute, highly infectious viral infection. Immunization of the children can protect not only the children but also the community from seasonal influenza. Parents' knowledge and attitudes can play an important role in the immunization coverage. Objectives: To assess parents' knowledge and attitudes toward childhood seasonal influenza vaccination for children aged below 5 years in Hilla governorate and to determine the relationship between them and socioeconomic status. Materials and Methods: A cross‑sectional study was done on 288 parents who visited a six randomly selected primary health care centers in Hilla city and who had children aged between (6 and 59) months. Data were collected from May 1, 2018, to August 4, 2018, by interviewing parents using a questionnaire form after taking their consent, including a full assessment of parents' attitude and knowledge toward seasonal childhood influenza vaccination. Results: The results showed that 92.7% (n = 260) of the participants had moderate and good knowledge about seasonal childhood influenza vaccination with significant association with mother's education, age, and family income and 88.9% (n = 256) of them had a positive attitude toward the vaccine which was significantly associated with the family residence, the coverage rate of the seasonal childhood influenza vaccine was 30.6% . Conclusions: The majority of participants had good and moderate knowledge and a positive attitude toward seasonal childhood influenza vaccination. Higher knowledge level was reported in mothers of younger age. A very low percentage of illiterate mothers had good knowledge. The majority of parents with good knowledge had low family income.