Anemia is known to worsen treatment outcomes in malaria, but there are not many studies to identify the predictors of anemia in Nigerian children with malaria. The objective of this study is to identify some of those predictors. Socio-demographic variables are predictors of anemia among under five children in Nigeria was the hypothesis tested. This is a cross-sectional study that used the 2018 demographic health survey (DHS) data from Nigeria to explore some of the factors that determine the presence of malaria-anemia co-morbidity in Nigerian children less than five years (N= 265). The outcome variable was anemia status in children under five with malaria and the explored predictors include age, sex, residential type, region of residence, mother’s education status and family’s wealth index. The study analyzed unweighted and weighted frequencies of the variables and conducted comparison of the outcome groups based on the predictor variables using Chi-square. Univariable and multivariable logistic regression was used to explore the strength of relationship between the outcome variable and the significant predictor variables in bivariate analysis. SAS 9.4 was used for the statistical analysis. Analysis of weighted frequencies showed that 55% of the children were less than 2 years of age while the sex was almost equally distributed between males and females (50.9% vs 49.1%). Just over two-thirds lived in a rural area, 63.2% resided in the Northern part of the country, 59.1% had a rich family and majority (69.1%) had anemia. When cross-tabulated with the outcome variable of anemia status, there was a significant difference in the categories of age (P=0.0048), residential type (P=0.0031), mother’s education status (P=0.0210) and family’s wealth index (P=0.0010). Univariable logistic regression showed that children less than 2 years had over two times higher odds of developing anemia when infected with malaria compared to older children aged 3-4 years (OR:2.17, 95% CI:1.26-3.74, P=0.0052). Urban-dwelling children had 57% reduced odds of developing anemia compared to rural-dwelling children (OR:0.43, 95% CI:0.25-0.76, P=0.0034). Children of educated mothers had 50% reduced odds of developing anemia compared to children of uneducated mothers (OR:0.50, 95% CI:0.28-0.91, P=0.0222), while children in poor families had 165% increased odds of developing anemia compared to those born into rich families (OR:2.65, 95% CI 1.47-4.78, P=0.0012). Once adjusted for all significant variables in the bivariate analysis, only age remained significant as a predictor of anemia in children under five years with malaria (OR:2.29, 95% CI:1.31-4.02, P=0.0039). Younger age seems to be an important predictor of anemia in Nigerian children with malaria in real life settings given its significance on the multivariable model. This finding should inform clinicians on the need to pre-empt and treat anemia in Nigeria’s younger children with malaria for better treatment outcome.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ETSU/oai:dc.etsu.edu:asrf-1715 |
| Date | 18 March 2021 |
| Creators | Adeyemi, Emmanuel Olusola |
| Publisher | Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University |
| Source Sets | East Tennessee State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Source | Appalachian Student Research Forum |
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