Health literacy on childhood immunization among antenatal women and its associated factors in Seremban district, Negeri Sembilan

Introduction: Immunization is a development process of immune system in the body against infectious diseases by administration of vaccine, toxoid, antibody, or antitoxin. It’s also recognized as a proven tool to prevent infectious diseases. Despite good coverage of immunization globally and nationally, there are still occurrence of vaccine preventable diseases. One of the reason is inadequate health literacy on immunization. Health literacy is an ability of individual to obtain, process and understanding of the basic health information and healthcare system in order to make a good decision of their health and family members. People with low health literacy has been linked to poor health outcome such as higher rate of hospitalization and less frequent used of preventive care such as vaccination. Objective: To determine the level of health literacy and its predictors of likelihood inadequate health literacy on childhood immunization among antenatal women in Seremban district, Negeri Sembilan. Methodology: A cross-sectional study based on cluster sampling was being conducted among 362 antenatal women who were attending to health care clinic in Seremban district from April 2017 to May 2017. All eligible antenatal women were selected based on inclusion and exclusion criteria. Data was collected using self-administered questionnaire. All data were analysed using IBM Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 22.0 involving descriptive and inferential statistics. Result: Majority of the respondents’ likelihood inadequate health literacy (81.2%). Out of 15 factors, six of them had a significant association with level of health literacy which were maternal education (p=0.001), ethnicity (p=0.032), parity (p=0.047), residential area (p=0.029), partner’s education (p=0.022) and household income (p=0.001). The predictors of likelihood inadequate health literacy were those who were low maternal education (AOR= 2.608, 95% CI 1.477-4.604), stayed at the rural area (AOR= 1.868, 95% CI 1.061-3.290), nulliparity (AOR= 1.067, 95% CI 1.103-3.876) and no utilization of government hospital (AOR= 2.344, 95% CI 1.184-4.641). Conclusion: As a conclusion, health promotion and education on childhood immunization need more focus among antenatal mother who were low education, stayed at the rural area, nulliparity women and no utilization of government hospital.

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