Mother’s Level of Knowledge on Neonatal Danger Signs and Its Predictors in Chencha District, Southern Ethiopia

Abstract

Introduction: Neonates and young infants often present with non-specific symptoms and signs of severe illness that indicate presence of severe infection which may require immediate care. So, mother’s knowledge is very important to recognize those symptoms to prevent further complications even dealth. But there is a gap in assessing mothers knowledge in neonatal danger signs. Because, almost all studies in Ethiopia assessed mother’s knowledge based on only one danger sign out of nine WHO recognized danger signs. So, the main aim of this study was to assess level of knowledge about neonatal danger signs based on 10 WHO recognized danger signs in Chencha District, Southern Ethiopia. Methods: Community based cross sectional study was conducted in 630 mothers from February 8- 28, 2017 by using one-stage cluster sampling method. Structured interviewer administered pre-tested questionnaire was used to collect the data. The collected data were entered into Epi data version 3.1 and then exported into SPSS window version 22 for analysis. Bivariate and multivariate analysis was done by using binary logistic regression to see the association between each independent variable and the outcome variable. The goodness of fit was tested by Hosmer-Lemeshow statistic and Omnibus tests. Multi co-linearity test was carried out to see the correlation between independent variables using standard error and collinearity statistics. Variables with P<0.2 in the bivariate analysis were included in to final model and statistical significance were declared at P< 0.05. Result: In this study 50.3% (95%CI: 46.4%, 54.2%) of mothers had good level of knowledge who knows three or more neonatal danger signs out of WHO stated 10 neonatal danger signs. Place of residence, presence of radio in the household and knowledge about essential newborn care were statistically significant association with knowledge about neonatal danger signs with odds (AOR=1.58, 95%CI: 1.05, 2.37), (AOR=1.67, 95%CI: 1.13, 2.49) and (AOR=5.29, 95%CI: 3.61, 7.78) respectively. Conclusion/recommendations: This study revealed that mothers level of knowledge about neonatal danger signs were low. Therefore, strengthening the provision of health information and ENC by designing appropriate strategies like Information Education Communication and Behavioural Change Communications both at facility and community level and advocate to use media as source of information should be promoted.