Perception of Health Workers on Reporting of Adverse Events Following Immunization in Jigawa State, Nigeria, 2022

An adverse event following immunization (AEFI) is any untoward medical occurrence which follows immunization, and which does not necessarily have a causal relationship with the usage of the vaccine. Reporting of AEFI is suboptimal amongst healthcare workers (HCWs). This study aimed to determine health workers’ perception on AEFI reporting. A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among health workers in selected health facilities in Jigawa State. We used an Open data kit (ODK) based self-administered questionnaire to collect data on socio demographic characteristics, knowledge, and perception of respondents on AEFI. Data was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), for frequencies, associations and factors affecting HCWs perception of AEFI reporting at 5% significance (p-value<0.05) and 95% confidence interval. Perception was graded as: poor<50%, fair 50–70% and good ≥70%. Of the 400 respondents, 227(56.8%) had good perception. Building public trust in immunization (94.8%), to enable proper diagnosis and management (94.0%), elicit training needs (94.0%) and reduce consequences of AEFI on health workers (86.0%) were the main reasons for reporting AEFI. The barriers to reporting AEFI were time constraints (51.6%), poor feedback (48.8%) and fear of consequences (41.0%). AEFI knowledge (AOR 2.312, p=0.018) and receipt of feedback on reported AEFIs (AOR 0.45, p=0.026) were independent predictors of good perception of AEFI. Only 57% of health workers had a good perception of AEFI. To improve reporting of AEFI, there is need to train heath workers and strengthen feedback mechanism of AEFI surveillance system. Keywords: Adverse events following immunization, Health providers, Perception, Surveillance.