Survival Analysis of Recovery of Weight Among Low Birth Weight Infants in Jimma University Medical Center, Jimma, Ethiopia

Abstract Background: . Globally, it has been known that around 15.5% of infants were below the normal level of weight at their birth and 95% of these infants lived in developing countries. Objectives: The study aimed to model time to normal weight from low weight among low weight infants delivered at Jimma University Medical Center Methods: : The retrospective data from all the admitted follow up of low birth weight(LBW) infants, from September 1,2020 to March 30,2022 in JUMC is used in this study. By assessing the overall goodness of fitted models, log-logistic accelerated failure time model which can fit the data well and had smallest akaike information criterion value were selected as the appropriate fit model. Results: Out of 325 LBW infants 286 (88%) were recovered from LBW and 39 (12%) censored. The most important predictors of time to normal weight at 0.05 level of significance were place of residence [φ =0.877 (95% CI: 0.808-0.952)], multiple birth [φ =1.459 (95% CI: 1.316-1.617)],gender [φ =0.870 (95% CI: 0.809-0.936)], history of abortion [φ =1.296 (95% CI: 1.165-1.441)],preterm birth [φ =1.172 (95% CI: 1.070-1.285)], maternal age 20-34 [φ =0.813 (95% CI: 0.727-0.909)] and maternal age >34 [φ =0.798 (95% CI: 0.694-0.917)], ANC follow up [φ =0.816 (95%CI: 0.755-0.883)] and weight at birth 1000-1500 gm [φ =0.773 (95% CI: 0.658-0.910)] and weight at birth 1500-2500 gm [φ =0.700 (95% CI: 0.602-0.815)]. Conclusion: Log-logistic AFT model fits the data well in analyzing time to normal weight among LBW infants data. The duration of time to normal weight of LBW infants significantly affected by the infants’ place of residence, birth status, history of abortion of mothers, gender, preterm, maternal age, number of ANC visits and weight at birth. Therefore, special emphasis should be given for infants who are female, rural place of residence, multiple birth, prematurely birth, infants born from teenage mothers, mother have an abortion, mother have not regular ANC follow up and infants who had <1000 gm birth weight to improve the duration of LBW. The estimated median duration of LBW was 10 days.