Assessment of Vitamin A supplementation coverage and caregiver knowledge in children at a teaching hospital, indicating awareness gaps.
Background: Vitamin A (VA) deficiency is an important public health problem in India. According to NFHS-5 report of West Bengal, 34.6% children aged 6 to 59 months received a single dose of VA within last 6 months. Given the low coverage of VA, we planned a study to assess a round of biannual Vitamin A supplementation program conducted at the immunisation clinic of a teaching hospital. Additionally, we also assessed awareness of caregivers on VAS. Methods: We recruited 104 children, aged 16-59 months coming for Vitamin A supplementation (VAS) dose unlinked to measles-rubella (MR) vaccine. Data collection was by interviewing caregivers accompanying the child using a structured schedule. We checked Mother and child protection card (MCPC) to gather information on age of the child and number of previous doses of VA. Results: Median age of children was 28 months. There were 26% children who missed one or more dose of VA and 59.6% caregivers were aware of benefit of Vitamin-A. Most of the care givers (77.9%) got information about VAS round by providers at Immunisation Clinic. Association of children’s age & respondents’ awareness with missed dose was statistically significant (p-value = 0.002 and 0.02) Conclusion: One out of every four children missed a VA dose while almost every second caregiver did not know about the benefits provided by VA. Repeated health talks on the danger of VA deficiency and benefits of supplementation may improve awareness and coverage of VA.
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Saha et al. (2025) studied this question.
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