School Performance of Children and Adolescents with Sickle-cell Anaemia (Sicklers).

Abstract

Summary: Absence from school and the academic performance scores obtained at sessional examination in the 1991 academic year by 52 children and adolescents with sickle-cell anaemia (sicklers), aged between six and 17 years and also by 52 age-and sex matched non-sicklers, were studied. Achievements of the sicklers and the controls respectively, in Mathematics, English Language, Sciences and So cial Studies were also studied. The mean number of days of absence from school for the sicklers was 9.3 + 5.5 days compared with 5.2 + 3.1 days for controls (P<0.001). Mean aggregate score, 62.6 + 15.3 percent, for the sicklers was comparable with the mean aggregate score, 64.9 + 12.7 percent, for the controls (P>0.1). There was no difference (P>0.5) between the patients and controls who scored above average, but among the sicklers, there was a higher number of those who scored below average than among the controls (P<0.05). There was no correlation between the number of days of school absence and the aggregate scores for the sicklers and the controls (P>0.05). It is concluded that sicklers have a higher school absence and some measure of academic underachievement than normal controls.