The Effect of Home Phototherapy in Jaundice and Bilirubin Levels of Neonates in Urmia City

Abstract

Neonatal jaundice is one of the most common diseases in neonatal medicine. Phototherapy is a safe and secure method and is one of the most common treatments of indirect hyperbilirubinemia. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of home phototherapy in neonatal hyperbilirubinemia in Urmia. The present study is a cross-sectional study by the Cohort method. Two hundred three full-term infants older than 24 hours, who were referred to phototherapy for home phototherapy for two months, were selected as the study population. Neonatal serum bilirubin levels in both groups were measured at the beginning and 24 hours after phototherapy. The collected data were analyzed by using SPSS-20. In this study, the mean neonatal bilirubin level before phototherapy was 14.33 ±2.41 mg/dl before and 8.11 ± 2.29 mg/dl after phototherapy. The reduction rate of bilirubin after home phototherapy was 6.6 mg/dl per day and these differences were statistically significant. During phototherapy at home, phototherapy was successful in 96.6% of the neonates recovered, and only seven neonates (3.4%) had complications. Due to the lower prevalence of complications and low duration of treatment, it can be concluded that home phototherapy can be a good alternative for the treatment of neonatal jaundice. Therefore, this method is recommended for the treatment of neonatal jaundice through proper phototherapy training at home.