Analysis of the agreement between information on child vaccination reported by mothers and that on the children's vaccination cards in Brazil (2013-2015)

Abstract

Background

This study discusses the possibility of using information on child vaccination reported by mothers through household surveys to construct indicators of immunization coverage in Brazil.

Objective

Evaluate the potential of information reported by mothers on the immunization of children in household surveys as a source to calculate a vaccination coverage indicator.

Method

The indicators of reliability (accuracy) and validity (concordance) between the information available on the vaccination cards of children under two years of age and that reported by mothers in two household surveys conducted in 2013 and 2015 in the municipality of Santo Antônio do Monte, state of Minas Gerais, Brazil.

Results

The main result shows that, in a context of high coverage, the mothers tended to inform randomly about the vaccination of their children, that is, the information reported by mothers presented low validity.

Conclusion

Although collecting information from children's vaccination cards is a more costly procedure, it is the most adequate and reliable way to measure vaccination coverage in the Brazilian context.

Keywords:
vaccine; validation studies; self-report