Determinants of health facilities to provide newborn care services in Ethiopia: Finding from service Availability and Readiness Assessment 2018
Abstract Background : Almost 50% of under-five mortality happens during the neonatal period. Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest rates of neonatal mortality. In this study we assessed the availability and readiness of health facility for newborn care service, its variations by health facility type, managing authority, location and regions in Ethiopia. Method: Data were used from the 2018 Ethiopian Service Availability and Readiness Assessment (SARA) from 9 regions and two city administration of the country. The overall newborn care services readiness score was calculated using ten tracer items and its mean availability was created for measuring health facilities overall capacity to provide newborn care services. A multiple linear regression model was used to determine factors associated with the newborn health readiness score. The analysis was done using SPSS version 20 and STATA version 14. Result : A total of 632 health facilities were included in the analysis. The mean availability of newborn care services at a national level was 63%. Only 7% of clinics provided neonatal resuscitation. A higher proportion of public facilities provided all signal functions compared with others facility types. Availability of newborn care services in overall facilities found in Tigray region were higher than facilities found in other regions. The overall newborn readiness score for health centres and clinics were lower than hospitals respectively. The expected value of newborn care readiness to provide the service was lower in health facilities found in Oromiya, Somali and Gambella than health facilities in Tigray. Conclusion : The availability of neonatal resuscitation, corticosteroids, antibiotic for preterm or prolonged premature rupture of membrane and injectable antibiotics for sepsis signal functions and the capacity of health facilities in terms of the mean availability of ten tracer items to provide newborn care services were low in clinics compared with health centres and hospitals. There was regional variation on the availability of the services. So, in the future focus should be given on clinics and the regions whose readiness score was low to ensure equity in distribution and its newborn care service capacity.