DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2015.v03i04.038

Pages: 1783-1786

Sickle cell anaemia (SCA) is one of the common causes of morbidity and mortality in children. Most of the hospital admissions among children with SCA in Nigeria are due to painful and anaemic crises. This study aimed to determine the prevalence of painful and anaemic crises among children with homozygous sickle cell disease attending tertiary hospital clinics. Two hundred and seventy-two children with SCA, aged 6 months to 15 years, were consecutively studied. It was a cross sectional study carried out at Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, Zaria, north-western Nigeria. Their age, sex and socio-economic status was determined through a structured questionnaire administered to the parents/ care-givers. Epi info statistical software was used in analysing the results. A p-value of ≤0.5 was considered statistically significant. Of the 272 children with SCA studied, 185 (68.0%) were in stable state while 87 (32.0%) had SCA crises. Their ages ranges from six (6) months to 15 years with a mean age (± 1 SD) of 6.4 ±3.8 years. Of the 87 subjects with SCA in crisis, 55 had painful crisis while 32 had anaemic crises giving a prevalence of 63.2% and 36.8% respectively. The type of SCA crisis was not affected by age, gender and social status. This study revealed a higher prevalence of painful than anaemic crises among children with SCA attending Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, Zaria and the type of SCA crises was not associated with age, gender and social class.