DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2018.v06i05.066

Pages: 2217-2223

Tetanus has remained a public health problem in developing countries with high case fatality rates. Efforts of neonatal, childhood and maternal tetanus elimination through vaccination have faced challenges in these parts of the world due to low health awareness, shortage of human and material resources and poor health seeking behavior for trauma. To determine the Socio-Demographic factors associated with childhood tetanus and its outcome in a tertiary level hospital. A cross-sectional descriptive type of study was conducted among all diagnosed admitted 104 childhood tetanus cases between o1 month and 12 years of children who had been referred from rural areas and different hospital services centers to Infectious Disease Hospital (IDH), Dhaka during January 2004 to October 2005. Data were collected from parents of children by a semi-structured open-end questionnaire consecutively. With the mean age of 5.94 years, children of 4-8 years got infected highest in number (46%) where male and female ratio found to be 1:1.2.Tetanus occurred in children with mostly the illiterate group of parents. Completion of EPI vaccination found in only 9.61% male and 6.73% female children with the most attributable reason of not being immunized was unawareness about EPI vaccination (35.79%). Mother’s education found to have significant impact (p<0.05) on the immunization history of the children and initial treatment seeking personnel after the onset of symptoms. With the mean hospital stay duration of 16 days, the maximum children stayed in the hospital were 3 weeks or less (37.1%). Patients with tetanus got cured were 91% and 9% cases were fatal. There is the need to improve immunization campaign against pediatric tetanus among parents and adolescents in high schools premises. Children who are born without antenatal care of their mothers and in the lowest wealth quintile and who have mothers without autonomy in their healthcare decision-making might more likely to be unaware about full