Knowledge and practice of essential newborn care and associated factors among women in Ethiopia: systematic review and meta-analysis

Essential newborn care (ENC) is a single most cost-effective intervention to reduce neonatal mortality and morbidity both in developed and developing countries. An intensive electronic search from PubMed, Google Scholar, EMBASE, HINAR, Scopus, and Web of Sciences were performed to identify the primary studies. In this meta-analysis a total of 25 articles were included to estimate the polled prevalence of ENC knowledge and practice among Ethiopian women. Accordingly, the national pooled prevalence of ENC knowledge and practice among women was 55.05% and 41.49% respectively. In the current systematic review and meta-analysis, Secondary education, multiparity, antenatal care, and postnatal follow-up were significantly associated with knowledge level whereas; primary education, urban residency, attending monthly meetings, antenatal care, advised during delivery, postnatal follow-up and knowledge on ENC were found to be statistically significant with essential newborn practice. As per finding the knowledge and practice regarding essential newborn care among women in Ethiopian was significantly low. Hence, improvement of essential newborn through the provision of community-based awareness creation forum, improving antenatal and postnatal care follow up, education on essential newborn care to all pregnant and postnatal women are very important.