Disease Severity of Children Attending the Pediatric Sickle Cell Clinic of a Tertiary Health Institution in Southwest Nigeria

Abstract

Abstract Context: Sickle cell disease is the most common hemoglobinopathy worldwide. Its effects are pan-systemic, affecting every organ in the body; hence, the manifestations are variable and diverse. A scoring parameter is needed to group patients into similar severity brackets for prognostic purposes. Aim: This study aimed to determine the severity score of children attending the Pediatric sickle cell clinic of a tertiary institution using an existing set of scoring parameters. Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional study that involved 100 children attending the sickle cell clinic of a tertiary institution in Nigeria. We used semi-structured questionnaires to obtain relevant sociodemographic data. We determined the clinical severity of the population using a set of clinical-laboratory parameters. Data were analyzed using IBM Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 25.0 for Windows. The level of significance was set at P < 0.05. Results: Most of the children (80; 80%) had a mild index of disease severity. Age, gender, and social class did not significantly affect disease severity. However, a low white blood cell (WBC) count predicted mild disease severity. Conclusion: Our study showed that most of the children had a mild index of disease severity, and this was predicted by a low WBC count.