Abstract:
Background: Neonatal Jaundice is a condition that leads to brain damage, physical
disability, and death among infants when left untreated. Globally about 114,000 newborns
died from Neonatal Jaundice and most of these neonatal deaths occur in low-resource
countries. Even though it is a preventable condition; there is high neonatal mortality and
morbidity. These results from poor understanding and delay in seeking care. Moreover, there
is limited study on mothers’ knowledge of Neonatal Jaundice in Ethiopia.
Objective: To assess knowledge of neonatal jaundice and associated factors among
postpartum women in public hospitals of West Shewa zone, Oromia, Ethiopia, 2022.
Methods: Facility based cross-sectional study was conducted at five public hospitals in the
West Shewa Zone from September 01 to October 30, 2022. The Study participants were
selected using a systematic sampling method and a total of 396 were involved in the study. A
structured questionnaire was used to collect data. Collected data was entered into Epi-data
version 3.1 and Exported to Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 26 for analysis.
Binary logistic regression was used to identify factors associated with the dependent variable.
Level of significance was declared at p-value less than 0.05 and Adjusted Odd ratio
presented with 95% Confidence interval.
Result: A total of 396 women were involved in the study giving a response rate of 98.3%.
About 55 (13.9%) of the respondents were found to have good knowledge. women whose
age was 25-36, whose previous baby had no history of Neonatal Jaundice AOR = 0.08, 95%
CI :( 0.02-0.3), formal education AOR = 4.7, 95% CI (1.4-15.5) employed women AOR =
3.2, 95% CI: (1.4-7.0) were significantly associated with good knowledge of women .
Conclusion and Recommendations. The overall knowledge of Neonatal Jaundice among
postpartum women was found to be low. Factors like women age, occupation, educational
status and women with previous baby with Neonatal Jaundice were associated with
knowledge of women .Therefore, the study implies that health education regarding neonatal
jaundice should be improved.
