Knowledge on newborn care among postnatal mothers of term babies with birth weights 2.5 kg or more at the De Soysa Hospital for Women, Colombo and associated factors

Abstract

Background: Increasing the knowledge of newborn care of postnatal mothers is essential to reduce infant morbidity and mortality. Objectives: To describe knowledge on newborn care among postnatal mothers at De Soysa Hospital for Women (DSHW), Colombo and associated factors. Method: A hospital based descriptive crosssectional study was done at DSHW, Colombo. A random sample of 422 postnatal mothers, who fulfilled the inclusion and exclusion criteria, was included in the study. A pre-tested intervieweradministered questionnaire in Sinhala and Tamil was used to obtain data. Ethical clearance was obtained from the Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo. Data were mainly represented by percentage frequencies and the mean knowledge score was calculated. Data obtained were statistically analysed by Microsoft SPSS. Results: Among the study group the mean knowledge on breast feeding was 60.86 ±0.91 while mean knowledge on handling was 59.71± 0.91. The highest calculated mean knowledge was for essential knowledge on wellbeing of baby (64.38±1.39) while the lowest calculated mean knowledge was for identification of danger signs (37.36±0.90). Overall mean knowledge of the study group was 60.86±0.91. There was a significant relationship between mean overall knowledge and level of education (p= 0.003), parity (p=0.001) and number of children (p =0.029). Calculated overall mean knowledge for a woman educated up to degree level was 67.74±2.76 and for a woman educated up to grade 5 it was 52.14±4.37. For multipara, overall mean knowledge was 63.17±1.17 and for primipara overall mean knowledge was 58.51±1.39. Calculated overall mean knowledge for a woman with one or more children was 62.96±1.24 and for a woman not having a child was 58.96±1.32. Conclusions: In our study mean knowledge score among mothers on essential newborn care was above 50% except for mean knowledge score on identification of danger signs which was 37.4. Educational level, parity and having one or more children were significantly associated with good knowledge on essential newborn care.