G/Kidan, Birhane (Assistant Professor)Bikila, Dereje2018-07-062023-11-062018-07-062023-11-062016-05http://etd.aau.edu.et/handle/123456789/6855Background Stress is the tension producing factors that have the potential of weakening the normal lines of defense, which is divided into physical, physiological, emotional, cognitive, psychological and parental, economical domains. Neonatal intensive care services are specialized services provided to the sick or premature newborns in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Parents of neonate admitted to neonatal intensive care face difficulty of tolerating the new environment. After neonate admitted to NICU the role of parent is restricted to certain extent and the overall care may be provided by health professionals which may made mothers’ stressful. Mothers of physically challenged children admitted to NICU had 95% moderate stress and 5 % sever stress level. As noise in the NICU elevated 22.9% mothers leave the neonatal care which made mothers’ in difficulty to keep attention to neonate and interact with health care providers. Few research has been done to explore the level of stress and its associated factors in developing countries. Assessing level of stress and its associated factors may play great role to provide adequate family centered care in NICU and also proof quality of care. Objective:  To assess level of stress and its associated factors among mothers’ of neonate admitted to NICU in TASH, Gandi memorial and Yekatit 12 hospitals, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2016. Methodology: Institution based quantitative cross sectional study was conducted from March, 2016 to April, 2016. Three hospitals were selected randomly by lottery method from 6 public hospitals having NICU and 316 eligible mothers were selected by using systematic random sampling method. Mothers were be proportionally allocated to size from each selected hospital. Data was collected through pretested standardized questionnaire by interviewing mothers. Both descriptive and inferential statistics was used to present the data. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression was computed to assess statistical association between the outcome variable and independent variables using odds ratio. The result was then displayed by using text, graphs and tables. Result: Present study showed that 74 (23.9%) mothers had severe stress, 154(49.5%) of mothers had moderate stress and remaining 81(26.6%) of mothers were with low stress level. Mothers were highly stressful in the area of material and equipment in NICU with mean score of 4.013, SD=0.7, which was followed by alteration of parental role (mean score =3.7, SD, 0.98 and staff communication (Mean score, 3.7 and SD=074) respectively. Multi logistic regression showed that hospital stay with 7-10 days with AOR =(95%CI(2(1.07,5.03), presence of large number of professionals in the NICU with AOR=(95% CI(4(1.581,8.856), feeling of helpless to protect baby from painful procedures with AOR=(95% CI( 4(1.88,9.35) and acting of staff as they couldn’t understand the special need of baby with AOR=(95% CI(3(1.204,6.901), were the identified associated factors that made mothers in stressful condition in NICU. Conclusion and recommendation The current study showed that the mothers admitted their neonates in NICU had more stressed in the area of physical facilities with (mean score 4.013), which was followed by communication with staff with (mean score 3.7), Parental role and relationship role related stress with (mean score 3.7) and sight and sound stress related with (mean score 3.43). Therefore government, health administrators and concerned stakeholders should make an effort to initiate family centered care in order to decrease mother’s stress during their visit in NICU. Key words: Intensive care unit, mothers, stress, factorsenIntensive care unitMothersStressFactorsThesis