Time to recovery and predictors of neonatal sepsis among neonates admitted to intensive care units in Southern ethiopia: multicenter study

Neonatal sepsis is a serious problem in the first 28 days of life which is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in developing counties. Neonatal sepsis remains a leading cause of neonatal morbidity and mortality, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. There is paucity of multicenter studies in this region. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the burden and predictors of recovery time among neonates with neonatal sepsis admitted to neonatal intensive care units in South Ethiopia. A retrospective follow up study was conducted among 643 charts of neonates with neonatal sepsis who were admitted to NICU in hospitals of Southern Ethiopia using systematic random sampling. Data were inputted into Epi data version 3.1 and exported to STATA 14 for analysis. Cox Proportional Hazard regression model was used. P-value < 0.05 in multivariable analysis was used to declare the result as statistically significant predictors of recovery from neonatal sepsis. The overall median recovery time was 8 days. The incidence rate of recovery from neonatal sepsis was 9.86 per 100 neonate day’s observation. Factors significantly associated with recovery time of neonatal sepsis includes; respiratory distress (AHR: 0.71, 95% CI (0.59, 0.85)), resuscitation at birth (AHR: 0.65, 95% CI (0.49, 0.87)), having fever (AHR: 0.82, 95% CI (0.67, 0.99)) and frequency of antibiotics change (AHR: 2.0, 95% CI (1.57, 2.63)). Time to recovery of neonatal sepsis was moderately acceptable as compared to the previous studies. It was significantly affected by resuscitation at birth, frequent antibiotic change, respiratory distress and fever. Therefore, health care providers must pay more attention for prevention and early intervention of complication.