Vol. 3, Issue 12, Part C (2017)

Abstract
Immunization is one of the most important preventive health actions in children’s lives, as it provides protection against the most dangerous childhood diseases. Achieving immunization through administration of vaccines to boys and girls is a priority, because if they have not been vaccinated they are at major risk of contracting diseases such as measles, whooping cough and others, which may be fatal in some cases and may lead to long-term debilitating effects on survivors. The pentavalent vaccine has replaced the current Hepatitis B and DPT primary vaccination schedule in the immunization programme. The Present study was undertaken to assess the level of knowledge regarding pentavalant vaccine among staff nurses. The research design used was descriptive experimental design and the population was 60 staff nurses working in selected hospital by using non probability convenient sampling technique. Structured knowledge questionnaire was used to assess the knowledge regarding pentavalent vaccine. The analysis of the data reveals that overall mean knowledge were 12.59. The results shows that existing mean knowledge of staff nurse was 2.95 in the aspect of introduction and advantages of pentavalent vaccine and least in the area of Age, route, dose & storage of pentavalent vaccine 3.96, in the area Schedule of pentavalent vaccine 2.58 and Contraindication & side effect of pentavalent vaccine the knowledge score was 3.1. The study revealed that the knowledge of staff nurses regarding pentavalent vaccine was moderate.