Academic achievement in Ugandan children with sickle cell anaemia: A
cross-sectional study
Abstract
Introduction: Academic achievement is crucial for advancing
learning goals. For disease-related and possibly additional reasons,
children with sickle cell anaemia (SCA) in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) may
be at risk of disease-associated school difficulties. Limited data exist
on academic achievement of school-age children with SCA in the region.
We aimed to assess academic achievement of children with SCA in Uganda.
Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in Kampala,
Uganda. Participants were school-going children with SCA, aged 6-12
years, attending Mulago Hospital SCA Clinic, and age-matched sibling
controls without SCA. Academic achievement was assessed using the Wide
Range Achievement Test, Fourth Edition (WRAT4) using outcome measures of
spelling, mathematical computation, word reading, and sentence
comprehension by age-normalized Z-scores. Results: Among 68 SCA
and 69 controls tested, mean age was 9.4 (SD2.0) years; with males
55.9% and 46.4%, respectively. Mean haemoglobin was 7.9 (0.)g/dL in
the SCA group versus 12.8 (0.)g/dL in the controls, (p<0.001).
Children with SCA scored lower in spelling, (mean difference [95%
confidence interval] -0.36 [-0.02 to -0.69], p=0.04) and
mathematical computation, (mean difference [95% confidence
interval] -0.51 [-0.17 to -0.85], p=0.003) than the
controls. No differences by group were found in word reading or sentence
comprehension. In the SCA group, lower scores in spelling correlated
with age, and males performed better than females in mathematical
computation. Discussion: School-aged children with SCA were at
risk of poor performance in spelling and mathematical computation. Our
findings suggest their need for educational evaluation and support,
especially in these two areas, in SSA.