Ngah Yayah Emerencia, Raoufi Ghazal, Amirkhani Maral, Esmaeili Ashkan, Nikooifard Rasa, Ghaemi Mood Shidrokh, Rahmanian Ava, Boltena Minyahil Tadesse, Aga Eresso, Neogi Ujjwal, Ikomey Mondinde George, El-Khatib Ziad
Azire Integrated Health Center, Bamenda Health District, Ministry of Health, Bamenda, Cameroon.
Public Health Graduate Studies, Department of Biology, The Bahá'í Institute for Higher Education, Tehran, Iran.
JMIR Res Protoc. 2023 Aug 9;12:e47018. doi: 10.2196/47018.
Globally, over 20 million children are unvaccinated and over 25 million missed their follow-up doses during the COVID-19 pandemic; thus, they face vaccine-preventable diseases and unnecessary deaths. This is especially the case for those with HIV or living in vulnerable settings. Using cell phones to send reminders to parents has been shown to improve vaccination rates.
We aim to determine whether implementation of an automated SMS reminder will improve child vaccination rates in a turbulent, semiurban/semirural setting in a low-income country.
This will be a nonrandomized controlled trial that will be conducted at Azire Integrated Health Centre, Bamenda, Cameroon.
A total of 200 parents per study group (aged over 18 years) who are registered at the clinic at least one month prior to the study will be recruited. The intervention group will receive 2 reminders: 1 week and 2 days prior to the scheduled vaccination. For those who miss their appointments, a reminder will be sent 1 week after their missed appointment. The control group will receive the regular care provided at the clinic. Baseline information, clinical visit data, and vaccination records will be collected for both groups. Descriptive statistics will be used to summarize baseline characteristics between and within clusters and groups. The Fisher exact test will be used to compare parent-child units who return for follow-up visits (as a percentage) and children vaccinated as scheduled (as a percentage) between the study groups. Finally, we will compare how many members of both study groups return for 1 follow-up visit using Kaplan-Meier survival analysis.
Due to limited effective child vaccination interventions in unstable settings, this study will be of high importance for suggesting a holistic approach to improve child vaccination and public health.
INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): DERR1-10.2196/47018.
在全球范围内，超过2000万儿童未接种疫苗，超过2500万儿童在新冠疫情期间错过后续剂次接种；因此，他们面临疫苗可预防疾病和不必要的死亡风险。对于感染艾滋病毒者或生活在脆弱环境中的儿童而言，情况尤其如此。研究表明，使用手机向家长发送提醒可提高疫苗接种率。
我们旨在确定在低收入国家动荡的半城市/半农村地区实施自动短信提醒是否会提高儿童疫苗接种率。
这将是一项在喀麦隆巴门达的阿齐尔综合健康中心开展的非随机对照试验。
每个研究组将招募200名（年龄超过18岁）在研究前至少一个月在该诊所登记的家长。干预组将收到2条提醒：预定接种前1周和2天各1条。对于错过预约的家长，将在错过预约1周后发送提醒。对照组将接受诊所提供的常规护理。将收集两组的基线信息、临床就诊数据和疫苗接种记录。描述性统计将用于总结群组间和组内的基线特征。Fisher精确检验将用于比较研究组之间返回进行随访的亲子单元（百分比）和按计划接种疫苗的儿童（百分比）。最后，我们将使用Kaplan-Meier生存分析比较两个研究组中有多少成员返回进行1次随访。
由于在不稳定环境中有效的儿童疫苗接种干预措施有限，本研究对于提出改善儿童疫苗接种和公共卫生的整体方法具有重要意义。
国际注册报告识别号（IRRID）：DERR1-10.2196/47018
