ABSTRACT

Background: Septicemia causes devastating effects encompassing multiple defects. As a debilitating illness, it is common cause of neonatal morbidity and mortality leading to prolong hospital stay, lengthy treatment session and increase health cost. Multiple etiologies indicate that sepsis is a result of a number of causalities.

Aim : to assess the indicators of neonatal septicemia in Pakistan.

Methodology: A cross-sectional study was done in the NICUs of a public health sector. The sample size was 173 neonates admitted after confirmation from blood reports as being septic. Birth weight was recorded and other history data pertaining to mother and neonate was obtained after getting informed consent. This study was done during a period of 9 months from April 2019 to December 2019. Data was analyzed on SPSS (version 24.0).

Results: Maternal and neonatal factors were identified as source of sepsis. With regards to maternal factors, history of previous infections [79(83.16), p-value<0.001], comorbidities [99(73.3), p-value<0.05] and anemia [83(76.8), p-value<0.001] contributed significantly towards sepsis. Neonatal factors accountable for sepsis were asphyxia [106(77), p-value <0.001], cord site infection [91(43.3), p-value <0.001] and bottle feeding practices [48(83), p-value <0.05.

Conclusion: The study attempted to reveal variety of maternal and neonatal factors. Significant indicators provide a clue for effective management of sepsis to save the precious lives. In Pakistan there is a need to manage such indicators to improve the quality of life in neonates. Maternal along with neonatal factors both contribute to provoke neonatal sepsis. By efficiently dealing with multiple causalities, issue of sepsis could be combated. There is a need to implement policies regarding antenatal care and pregnancy screening services in Pakistan.

Key words: Indicators, Neonate, Septicemia, Pakistan.