Mothers Infant Sunlight Exposure Practice And Associated Factors At Dejen District, Amhara, Ethiopia 2021

Introduction: Currently, nutritional rickets has become a concern of many nutrition experts in many countries. Sunlight is the best and most reliable Source of vitamin D. since there is scarce information regarding infant sunlight exposure practice and the determinant factors. The study assessed mothers’ infant sunlight exposure, practice level, and associated factors. Methods: : a community-based cross-sectional study was conducted on 884 mothers from March 20 to April 04/2017. Through the multi-stage simple random sampling method, the study areas had selected. The data were collected using a structured and pre-tested questionnaire and were entered into Epidata version 3.1 and exported to SPSS version 20 for analysis. The strength of association was measured using binary logistic regression at a 95% CI odds ratio. Finally, P-value < 0.05% was declared statistically significant. Results: : Out of the study participants, 866 (97.9%) were interviewed. Only 44% of mothers had good practice of infant sunlight exposure. In multivariate analyses; Knowledge status [AOR=1.4, 95% CI: (1.0-1.9)], Attitude status [AOR=1.4, 95% CI: (1.1-1.9)] , mothers age group [AOR= 8.6, 95% CI:(5.1-14.4)] ,mothers educational status [AOR= 5.2, 95% CI: (1.6 - 16.9), delivery at health facility [AOR= 1.5, 95% CI: (1.0-2.1)], and friend influence [AOR= 1.6, 95% CI: (1.2-2.1)] were significantly associatiated with the practice level of infant sunlight exposure. Conclusion: This finding showed that the majority of the mothers did not expose their infants to sunlight appropriately. The mother's knowledge, attitude, educational status, institutional delivery, and friend influence were the significant factors and needs to work on these.