Perception of Mothers Towards Neonatal Jaundice in Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital, Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State

This study examined perception of mothers towards neonatal jaundice in Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital, Ado-Ekiti. The study specifically examined the opinion of mothers about neonatal jaundice; the perception of mothers on orthodox and unorthodox management of neonatal jaundice; and mothers’ knowledge about complications of neonatal jaundice. Descriptive of the survey type research design was used. The study population are expectant mothers who attend antenatal clinic in Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital, Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State. The average number of expectant mothers attending the clinic per month was 400. Simple Random Sampling Technique was used to select 120 participants for this research work. The instrument for this study was a self-constructed questionnaire developed by the researcher and was administered personally by the researcher. The instrument consisted of four sections. The instrument was subjected to face and content validity. Internal consistency method was used to determine the reliability of the instrument. Cronbach Alpha statistics was used to analyse the collected data and it yielded reliability coefficient value of 0.76. Out of one hundred and twenty questionnaires distributed only one hundred and fifteen were adequate for analysis. Data collected were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics techniques. The findings of this study shows mothers’ perception of neonatal jaundice, more than half of the population sampled had the right perception of neonatal jaundice, their perception of orthodox management was fair while they had right perception of unorthodox management of neonatal jaundice. It was recommended among others that nurses should include health talk on prevention and management of neonatal jaundice to the mothers during antenatal periods. Keywords: Mothers, Neonatal Jaundice, Perception