Prevalence rate of skin manifestations in NICU-admitted neonates

Background: Skin disorders in neonates can be regarded as determining concepts for prognosis and genetic counseling. Few studies have so far been conducted on determining and recording the relative frequency of skin disorders. The present study was therefore conducted to investigate skin manifestations and their relationship with other variables in the neonates hospitalized in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).Methods The present cross-sectional study was conducted on 403 neonates, hospitalized in the NICU of Rasoul Akram Hospital in 2014 and selected using convenience sampling. The data collected from the profiles of the neonates were recorded in a data collection form.Results Of the 403 study neonates, 366 (90.8%) had no skin manifestations, while 37 (9.2%) had skin manifestations, 18 (48.6%) of which were pathological. According to the results obtained, gender, type of delivery, gestational age and reasons for hospitalization were found not to be correlated with skin manifestations and their pathological status (P>0.05). Moreover, gender, gestational age and reasons for hospitalization had no significant relationships with the lesion type (P>0.05). Type of delivery was however found to have a statistically significant relationship with the type of skin manifestation (P=0.043).Conclusion Skin manifestations in the neonates hospitalized in the NICU are found to be less frequent in the present study compared to those in other studies, which can be attributed to the retrospective type of study using profiles and the lack of direct medical examination of patients.