Abstract:
Background: Jaundice is a yellow discoloration of the skin eyes and mucus membrane caused by hyperbilirubinemia. Neonatal jaundice is a common clinical problem worldwide. Globally, every year, about 1.1 million babies would develop severe hyperbilirubinemia with or without bilirubin encephalopathy, and the majority resides in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Bilirubin induced mortality is highly prevalent in developing countries, in which our country belongs to. Determining the magnitude of and factors leading to neonatal jaundice enables to look ways to decrease associated morbidity, severe complications and mortalities which can easily be treated only if identified earlier.
Objective: To assess the magnitude and associated factors of neonatal jaundice in neonates admitted to neonatal intensive care unit, Tibebe Gion Specialized Hospital, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia, 2022 GC.
Methods: An institutional based cross sectional study design was used in a total of 365 neonates. All the necessary data was collected from patient charts by using data collection format & samples were selected using systematic sampling technique. The data was entered to SPSS version 23 for analysis. Both bivariate & multivariate logistic regression model was used to identify significant variables determining neonatal jaundice. Variables with a p-value <0.05 was considered statistically significant & data collection period was from August 2-14/2022 GC.
Result: A total of 365 neonates were participated in the study from which 144(39.5%) were found to have neonatal jaundice. Neonates who had ABO-incompatibility were 28.3times more likely to have neonatal jaundice than neonates who had no ABO-incomatibility (AOR:28.3(9.1,87.5)), neonates with Rh-incompatibility were 15.4 times more likely to have neonatal jaundice than those who don’t have Rh-incompatibility (AOR:15.4(3.9,60.3)), neonates who had birth trauma were 11.1 times more likely to have neonatal jaundice than those without birth trauma (AOR: 11.1(3.2, 38.5)) and neonates born with low birth weight were 3.5 times more likely to have neonatal jaundice than those having normal birth weight (AOR:3.5(1.43, 8.73)).
Conclusion and recommendation: The proportion of neonatal jaundice in this study was higher than the result study done in the same setting in this region. To minimize its proportion and related complications, pregnant mother should have focused ANC.