PCV status, necessary for assessing vaccine impact, is often incomplete or unknown. For children admitted with pneumonia in Kathmandu, Nepal, we compared vaccine histories from caregivers vs medical records to determine if these provided similar estimates of coverage.
Between 2016-2019, patients aged 6 months to 14 years admitted with pneumonia at Patan Hospital, enrolled into a pneumococcal carriage study had their number of PCV doses collected by caregiver recall and/or from hospital medical records. Records, created at birth, are updated when they receive routine vaccinations there; for vaccinations administered elsewhere, vaccine history is obtained from caregivers during any hospital admission. Cases were excluded from analyses if both caregiver recall and medical records were cited as the source.
Of the 1,603 inpatients enrolled, 1,201 (80%) had data from either caregiver recall or medical records. PCV coverage (3 doses) was higher for caregiver recall than medical records (43% vs 35%; p=0.03), while Hib vaccine coverage was similar (91% vs 87%; p=0.16).
Although caregiver recall provided statistically higher estimates of vaccine coverage than medical records, the estimates were generally similar. Medical records may be incomplete (underestimate) and caregiver recall may have recall bias (overestimate); the truth may be in between.