Knowledge and attitude about neonatal ICTR among mothers in Sari

Background and Neonatal icer is one of the common problems in neonates caused by different etiologies. Because of ÇNS complications which causes mortality or mental relardation, neonatal icter is very important. Âccording to the role of knowledge and attitude of the mothers and inappropriate referral of the neonates to physician, effectiveness of treatment and prevention of serious complication, we studied the knowledge and the sttitude about neonatal icter among mothers in Sari. This was a decriptive crossectional research. Study population were mothers of neonates at the public and private hospitals. Sampling method was stratified and simple. The tool for data collection was questionnaire consisted of demographic variables, 16 questions for knowledge and 14 questions for attitude about neonatal icter with 16 and 28 scores respectively. Validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by experts consultant and reliability by test method. Âfter data collection and definition of level of the knowledge and attitude, analysis was performed by SPSS software using X2, t test abd ÂNÔVÂ. Totally 400 mothers were studied. Âge of them was 25.81 ± 4.88, 4.25% of them were at the high risk age for pregnancy, 52% were urban and 4.5% were illiterate. Âlso 42.3% had prenatal care, mostly (64.4%) by specialist physician. Most of the mothers were in the low (42.3%) or moderate (23.3%) socioeconomic status, 76.5% of the mothers had low knowledge, 23.3% moderate and only 1.3% have high level of knowledge about the neonatal icter. This knowledge significantly was related with elder age mothers, higher level of education, higher socioeconomic state and history of icter in the pervious child (P=0.000). The attitude about neonatal icter was inappropriate in 19.3% of the mothers, relatively appropriate in 60.3% and appropriate in 20.5%. This Âttitude was significantly related with elder age and higher level of education of the mothers, living in urban areas, higher socioeconomic state and higher number of childs (p=0.000). Çonclusion: Most of the mothers had low level of knowledge and attitude about the neonatal icter. Therefore serious attention and designing of appropriate intervention for improvement of the knowledge on attitude about neonatal icter are essential.