Socio-emotional and adaptive behaviour in children treated for severe anaemia at Lira Regional Referral Hospital, Uganda: a prospective cohort study.

Background: Severe anaemia is a global public health challenge commonly associated with morbidity and mortality among children < 5 years of age in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, less is known about the behavioural performance of children < 5 years surviving severe anaemia in low resource settings. We investigated social-emotional and adaptive behaviour in children < 5 years diagnosed with severe anaemia in Northern Uganda.

Methods: We conducted a hospital based prospective cohort study among children 6-42 months who were treated for severe anaemia (n = 171) at Lira Regional Referral Hospital, Uganda. Socio-emotional and adaptive behaviour were assessed 14 days post discharge using the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development, 3rd edition. Age-adjusted z-scores for each domain were calculated using scores from healthy community children (n = 88) from the same environment for each age category. Multiple linear regression was used to compare z-scores in the social-emotional and adaptive behaviour scales between the two groups after adjusting for weight-for-age z-score, social economic status, mother's education, father's education and father's employment on all the scales.

Results: Compared with healthy community controls, children with severe anaemia had poorer [adjusted mean scores (standard error)], socio-emotional [- 0.29, (0.05) vs. 0.01, (0.08), P = 0.002]; but not overall/ composite adaptive behaviour [- 0.10, (0.05) vs. - 0.01, (0.07), P = 0.343]. Within the adaptive behaviour subscales, children with SA displayed significantly poorer scores on the community use [adjusted mean score (standard error)], [- 0.63, (0.10) vs. - 0.01, (0.13), P < 0.001]; and leisure [- 0.35, (0.07) vs. - 0.02, (0.07), P = 0.036] skills.

Conclusion: This study suggests that severe anaemia in children < 5 years is associated with poor social-emotional scores in the short-term post clinical recovery in Northern Uganda. We recommend long-term follow-up to determine the course of these problems and appropriate interventions to reduce the behavioural burden among children < 5 years surviving severe anaemia in Uganda.