Determinants of neonatal mortality in the neonatal intensive care unit of Dilla University Referral Hospital, Southern Ethiopia; 2019–2020; A matched, case–control study

Neonatal mortality rate (NMR) refers to the number of deaths occurring from birth to 28 days of life per-1000 Live Births (LB). The global NMR declined from 37 deaths per- 1,000 LB in 1990 to 18 in 2017, whereas it was 27 deaths per 1000 LB in the Sub-Saharan region. Ethiopia plans to reduce the NMR from 28 deaths to 11 deaths per 1,000 LB by 2020 and to end all preventable child deaths by 2035. The aim of this study was to identify the determinants of neonatal mortality in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) of Dilla University Referral Hospital (DURH). An age-matched case control study was conducted at DURH's NICU. Two controls having age 2 days before or after the case were used for matching. One hundred eighteen cases (died) and 236 controls (survived) neonates admitted to the NICU from January 11, 2018, to February 25, 2020, were studied. Missed data were filled by multiple imputations. Multicollinearity was checked by the variance inflation factor. For variables with a P-value