Introduction Immunisation plays a vital role in reducing child mortality and morbidity against preventable diseases. As part of a randomised controlled trial in rural Madhya Pradesh, India to assess the impact of Kilkari, a maternal messaging programme, we explored determinants of parental immunisation knowledge and immunisation practice (completeness and timeliness) for children 0-12 months of age from four districts in Madhya Pradesh. Methods Data were drawn from a cross-sectional survey of women (n=4423) with access to a mobile phone and their spouses (n=3781). Parental knowledge about immunisation and their child’s receipt of vaccines, including timeliness and completeness, was assessed using self-reports and vaccination cards. Ordered logistic regressions were used to analyse the factors associated with parental immunisation knowledge. A Heckman two-stage probit model was used to analyse completeness and timeliness of immunisation after correcting for selection bias from being able to produce the immunisation card. Results One-third (33%) of women and men knew the timing for the start of vaccinations, diseases linked to immunisations and the benefits of Vitamin-A. Less than half of children had received the basic package of 8 vaccines (47%) and the comprehensive package of 19 vaccines (44%). Wealth was the most significant determinant of men’s knowledge and of the child receiving complete and timely immunisation for both basic and comprehensive packages. Exposure to Kilkari content on immunisation was significantly associated with an increase in men’s knowledge (but not women’s) about child immunisation (OR: 1.23, 95% CI 1.02 to1.48) and an increase in the timeliness of the child receiving vaccination at birth (Probit coefficient: 0.08, 95% CI 0.08 to 0.24). Conclusion Gaps in complete and timely immunisation for infants persist in rural India. Mobile messaging programmes, supported by mass media messages, may provide one important source for bolstering awareness, uptake and timeliness of immunisation services. Trial registration number NCT03576157.
The study was conducted in rural MP, a state in central India with one of the lowest per capita state domestic products.23 There remains a significant gender gap in women’s literacy and access to mobile phones within and across MP and throughout much of India. Findings from the 2015–2016 National Family Health Survey (NFHS) suggest that across MP, literacy rates were 59% and 82% for women and men, respectively.24 The gender gap in women versus household access to mobile phones is estimated to be 60% in rural areas and 44% in urban areas in 2015.24 MP falls below national averages for most health indicators, including immunisations. Among children 12–23 months of age, 54% were fully immunised (Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG), measles and three doses each of polio and DPT) in MP as compared with 62% nationally.24 Study findings draw from data captured as part of the RCT in four districts (Rewa, Hoshangabad, Mandsaur and Rajgarh) of MP, described in detail elsewhere.22 In brief, women 4–7 months pregnant (5095) with access to mobile phones were randomised to either a comparison arm of no calls or an intervention arm where they were eligible to receive Kilkari calls from the 18th week of pregnancy up until the child’s first birthday. The RCT assessed the impact of Kilkari on various reproductive maternal newborn and child health (RMNCH) behaviours including full and timely immunisations among children 0–12 months of age.22 The present analysis used the postpartum survey data from 4423 postpartum women (87%, out of 5095 total enrolled in Kilkari) with a live birth during the index pregnancy and their husbands (3781 men). Data could not be collected from 642 husbands primarily due to migration for work. The interviews were conducted face-to-face in Hindi and included questions on socioeconomic and demographic factors, access to mobile phones and parental knowledge about immunisation. Information on what vaccines the child received from birth to the time of postpartum survey (approximately 12 months after birth) was recorded from the government-issued vaccination card called the Mother and Child Protection (MCP) card. After adjusting for twins and number of children born since the baseline, information was available for 3891 children, for whom interviews of both the parents could be conducted. Out of these 3891 children, the MCP card was available for 3230 children. Posthoc power analysis indicated that the final sample of 3230 children was powered to detect a change of up to 4% in immunisation coverage for children 0–12 months old, with a power of 80% and a type-I error of 0.05. During the postpartum survey, women (mothers) and their husbands (fathers) were asked 11 questions to assess their knowledge about childhood immunisation. Questions covered timing of first vaccination, diseases against which a child needs to be vaccinated within the first year of their birth and benefits of Vitamin-A. A score of 1 was assigned for each correct response and 0 otherwise, with equal weights assigned to each response, resulting in a composite knowledge score for each respondent ranging from 0 to 11. Full immunisation (comprehensive) was if the child received all 19 vaccines listed in online supplemental Annexure-2 (following the guidelines of India’s National Immunisation Guideline25), to which a score of 1 was assigned, else they were assigned 0. Full immunisation (basic) was if the child received all eight basic vaccines: BCG, three doses of DPT, three doses of Polio and measles, to which a score of 1 was assigned, else they were assigned 0 (following the NFHS24). Timely immunisation (comprehensive) was assessed by comparing the expected vaccination date to the actual vaccination date. Each vaccine’s recommended vaccination date was estimated by calculating when the vaccine should have been administered based on the child’s date of birth as listed in their MCP card and according to Government of India vaccine schedule guidelines.25 The actual vaccination date was recorded from the child’s MCP card. For each vaccine, we assigned 1 if it was administered within 28 days of the date the vaccine becomes due and a 0 if not. Each child thus had a total timely immunisation score that varied from 0 to 19. Timely immunisation (basic) was defined as the administration of BCG, three doses of DPT, three doses of polio and the measles vaccine at the 6–10 weeks, 10–14 weeks, 14–18 weeks and 9–10 months, respectively. For each vaccine, a score of 1 was assigned if it was administered within time (as described for the comprehensive package above), else 0, with a total score varied from 0 to 8. Frequencies and proportions were used to understand the characteristics of the sample, exposure to Kilkari immunisation calls, parental knowledge on immunisation and immunisation status among the children. We used ordered logistic regression, separately for mothers and fathers, to assess the factors associated with parental knowledge of immunisation. To assess the correlates of parent’s immunisation knowledge, the following model specification was used: I-KNOW=f(KILKARI, SES, M-INDIV, M-ACCESS, IMMU-INFO, DIST) (1), where I-KNOW is the immunisation knowledge score, on a scale varying from 0 to 11. KILKARI is a binary variable, where 1 indicates if the cumulative time of content listening under the Kilkari programme was ≥50% (at least 441 econd of total 881 second of cumulative content on immunisation were played), 0 otherwise. The information was collected from the call records data. SES is a vector of socioeconomic characteristics of the mother which includes dummies for caste (other backward class (OBC), scheduled caste/scheduled tribe (SC/ST) and others) and wealth quintiles (computed by principal component analysis based on various assets ownership and availability of amenities in household). M-INDIV represents a mother’s total years of completed formal education, number of children she has, dummy variables to represent her employment status (1 if employed), and if she plays any role in taking decision of daily purchases of the household and her pregnancy. A mother’s mobile phone access is proxied by M-ACCESS which comprises dummies representing whether she owns a personal mobile phone, if she has access to the mobile phone for more than 12 hours a day and if the phone is often at zero balance. Sources of immunisation information are represented by the vector IMMU-INFO which includes dummies on whether the mother has asked for immunisation information from any health worker, whether she has received the same from any health worker and if she reported to receive information from (i) television or (ii) print (poster/newspaper/handout). Finally, vector DIST represents district dummies. For the analysis of factors associated with father’s immunisation knowledge, the explanatory variables remain the same as equation (1) (KILKARI, SES, father’s individual characteristics, father’s access to mobile phone and district dummies) except the vector on sources of immunisation information (asked and received information from health worker, received information from television or print media), which was not collected and is not part of the analysis. Out of the total sample of 3891 children, the MCP card was available for 3230 (83% of sample) children. There could be systemic differences between mothers who could produce the MCP card and those who could not. To address this, we applied Heckman two-stage sample selection model to correct for selection bias.26 In the first step, the model estimates the probability of having the MCP card, which can be expressed as: Prob (MCP=1 | Z)=f(Z (KILKARI, SES, M-INDIV, M-ACCESS, IMMU-INFO, ASHA, DIST)) (2), where MCP=1 if the mother could produce the MCP card, 0 otherwise; Z is a vector of explanatory variables representing a mother’s characteristics explained in equation (1) and the caste of ASHA, the frontline worker playing a crucial role in RMNCH related issues, as a proxy to capture the capability of her. In the second stage, after incorporating the predicted probability of having the MCP card as an explanatory variable, the model to predict the practice of immunisation can be represented as: P-IMMU* = β*X + ε (3), where P-IMMU, probability of child to be immunised, is not observed if the mother could not produce the MCP card. The conditional expectation of immunisation practice can be expressed as: E(P-IMMU | X, MCP=1) = β*X+E(ε|X, MCP=1) (4), where X is a vector of characteristics expressed in equation (1), additionally including (i) parental immunisation knowledge scores, (ii) child’s gender (to assess any gender-based bias) and (iii) if the child received most vaccines at the Anganwadi centre, the nutrition and childcare centre at the village and a common place for immunisation. The analysis of determinants of full immunisation and timely immunisation of basic and comprehensive package, vaccination at birth, at 6–10 weeks, 10–14 weeks, 14–18 weeks and 9–10 months were done using Heckman probit model. Ethical clearance for this study was obtained from the Independent Ethics Review Boards of Johns Hopkins School of Public Health Institution in Baltimore, Maryland and Sigma Research in India. Verbal informed consent was obtained from the study participants, for participation in the RCT and in the baseline and postpartum survey.
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