Contributory factors to early neonatal deaths in the Upper East Regional Hospital in Ghana

Objective: This study examined factors identified during early neonatal death audits contributing to preventable newborn deaths at the Upper East Regional Hospital. Method: Data for this study was collected retrospectively from perinatal death audit forms using three data collectors. Data collection lasted two weeks, from 18th June to 2nd July 2021. The data collectors submitted 113 filled hard copy data collection forms. This was then entered into a designed Excel sheet and exported to STATA software version 15.0 for analysis. The analysis was descriptive statistics with cross-tabulation. The results were presented in charts and tables focusing on percentages. Results: Most of the 113 neonatal deaths were from birth asphyxia (63%). Forty-six (40.7%) of the deaths occurred within 24 hrs after birth. There were 38 factors reported 254 times in the audits as contributory to all the newborn deaths; 17 health personnel-related factors stated 141 (55.5%) times, four transportation and communication-related factors stated 43 (16.9%) times, seven health facility factors stated 31 (12.2%) times. Inappropriate care during transportation to the regional hospital was reported most - 21 times, followed by delay in referral - 18 times. Conclusion: The study identified many factors, such as medical personnel-related factors, transportation and communication factors, family-related factors, and health facility administration factors, contributing to early neonatal deaths. Effective implementation of neonatal death audit-based recommendations arising from these contributory factors is critical to preventing avoidable newborn deaths.