Abstract:
Background: Immunization is considered as the. corner stone of primary intervention as well as one of the most important and cost-effective public health interventions available for the prevention of childhood illnesses and death. The Ethiopian EPI programmers was launched in 1980.Access to immunization services is fairly good (DPT1 > 84%), where as the dropout rate was unacceptably high, lack of knowledge for need of immunization is the main reason behind this figure. Besides, effectiveness of immunization service relies on the quality of care provided during each immunization visits. Quality of the service enables the care givers to decide to attend whole immunization schedule properly for their children. Objective: To assess the quality of EPI service at public health facilities of Bahir-dar special zone, Northwest Ethiopia. Methods: A facility based cross-sectional study employing both quantitative and qualitative methods will be conducted from 151 July to 31 August 2014 in Bahir-Dar town administration, North Western Ethiopia with a total of 431 study participant using the ten public health facilities. Study participants will be selected using systematic random sampling with proportion with number of client the health facilities served. Data will be collected by observation with check list and exit interview with structured questionnaire in ten public health facilities by four clinical nurses working as data collectors. The data will be entered by Epi Info and analyzed by SPSS. Descriptive statistics will be done to determine the extent to which recommended EPI service are provided, Bivarient analysis will be done to compute the association between dependent and independent variable, and multiple logistic regression to find out the most important predictor for client satisfaction. Work plan and Budget: After getting ethical clearance data collectors and supervisor will be recruited and trained, pre test will be conducted before the actual data collection. The total projected cost of the study is 27,290. Key words: Quality, Satisfaction v In assessing quality of health care one should go through at least three dimensions of the service which are input, process and outcome. Input or Structure is the attributes of settings where care is delivered like the physical setting where the service is provided and availability of the necessary equipment and supplies, Process describes whether or not good medical practices are followed during the session it shows provider client interaction during service delivery, where as Outcomes is all about impact of the care on health status (7). According to guidelines developed by the World Health Organization, children are considered fully vaccinated when they have received a vaccination against tuberculosis (BCG), three doses each of the DPT and polio vaccines, and a measles vaccination by the age of 12 months. The pentavalent vaccine, introduced in 2007, has replaced the previous DPT vaccine. This new vaccine protects against diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), tetanus, hepatitis B, and Haemophilus influenza type b. Recently the introduction of Rota virus vaccine and vaccine for pneumonia (PCV) make ten diseases aimed by the immunization program. In Ethiopia, the vaccination policy calls for BCG vaccine given at birth or at first clinical contact, three doses of DPT-HepB-Hib vaccine given at approximately 4, 8, and 12 weeks of age, four doses of oral polio vaccine given approximately at 0-2, 4, 8, and 12 weeks of age, and measles vaccine given at or soon after reaching 9 months of age. However, in 1986, the coverage target was reviewed to 75% from that of 100% and the target age group was changed to under ones but progress in increasing coverage has been slow. The routine immunization program is funded primarily by partners and Government