Abstract:
Background: In spite of recent advances in health care, neonatal sepsis is still one of the
major causes of morbidity and mortality in neonates and is an ongoing major global public
health challenge. Ethiopia is among the countries with a high neonatal mortality rate due to
invasive bacterial infection, and the burden of this mortality remains unreported in many
setting such as Southeast Ethiopia.
Objective: To assess time to death and its predictors among neonates with sepsis admitted
to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Maddawalabu University Goba Referral Hospital,
Goba, Ethiopia.
Methods: A facility-based retrospective open cohort study was conducted from August,15
to September 1, 2022 and followed up for a total of 28 days. A total of 378 charts of neo nates admitted to neonatal intensive care units from January 1, 2020 to December 31,2021
were enrolled in the study. A data extraction form was used to collect data. A simple ran dom sampling technique was used to select eligible Neonatal charts with sepsis. The data
were entered into Epi-data version 3.1 and exported to STATA version 14 for analysis.
Kaplan Maier plots, log-rank test and Cox-proportional hazard regression were used. A
Hazard Ratio with its 95% Confidence interval and p-values of 0.05 was utilized to evaluate
the association's strength and identify statistically significant predictors.
Result: The incidence of mortality was 3.8 per 100 neonate days admitted with neonatal
sepsis. Delay Initiation of Exclusive Breast Feeding within an hour (AHR= 0.29; 95% CI:
0.11,0.76)), Born to mother’s HIV seropositive (AHR=0.4 95%CI: 0.20, 0.85), Early Neo natal age (AHR= 0.1 95%CI: 0.03,0.26), Prolonged duration of PROM (AHR=2.07;
95%CI: 1.11,3.84) and Preterm gestational age (AHR=0.42 95%CI: 0.19, 0.89) were found
significant predictors of mortality among neonates with neonatal sepsis.
Conclusion: In this study, incidence death rate was high compared to previous study. Not
Initiating EBF within an hour, born to mother positive HIV status, early Neonatal Age,
Prolonged duration of PROM and preterm for gestational age were significant predictors
of mortality among neonates with sepsis.
