Revista de Enfermagem e Cuidados

Knowledge of Essential Newborn Care among Nurses and Midwives Working in Lideta Sub City Government Health Centers

Abstract

Filmona Mekuria1 *, Alemayehu Bekele2 and Tinebeb Seyoum3

Introduction: Neonatal mortality constitutes a major public health problem. Ethiopia has made a great progress on institutionalization of deliveries where deliveries are mainly facilitated by midwives and nurses by providing essential newborn care. Hence, assessing the knowledge of these professionals is a primary concern. Therefore, this study is intended to identify knowledge gap on essential newborn care.

Objective: The objective of this study was to assess the knowledge of essential newborn care and associated factors.

Methods: Facility based cross-sectional study was conducted. All nurses and midwives who provide delivery and neonatal care were involved in the study. Self-administered questionnaires were distributed to participants to collect data and facilitated by data collectors. Data was entered to statistical package for social sciences version 21 and analyzed. Finally, the results were illustrated in the form of text, tables and graphs.

Results: The mean knowledge score of study participants was 12.66. The study revealed that 55% of the respondents had good knowledge of essential newborn care. Field of study was found to have significant association with the knowledge of essential newborn care

Conclusion: The study population had poor knowledge on some aspects of essential newborn care. Field of study was found to be independent predictor of knowledge. Therefore, strengthening and incorporation of all components of essential newborn care in the curriculum was recommended.