Prevalence of children under five with disabilities in Sierra Leone in 2017: Insights from a population-based multiple indicator cluster survey.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Children with disabilities have been low on the agenda of child health, including in Sierra Leone, and there are still many gaps in our knowledge and understanding of the issue. OBJECTIVE: To estimate the prevalence of children with disabilities in Sierra Leone using functional difficulty as a proxy and to understand the factors associated with disabilities among children two to four years living in Sierra Leone. METHODS: We used cross-sectional data from the Sierra Leone 2017 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey. Disability was defined using a functional difficulty definition with additional thresholds used to define children with severe functional difficulty and multiple disabilities. Logistic regression models estimated odds ratios (ORs) of childhood disability and how they were associated with socioeconomic factors and living conditions. RESULTS: Prevalence of children with disabilities was 6.6% (95% confidence interval (CI) 5.8-7.6%) and there was a high risk of comorbidity between different functional difficulties. Children with disabilities were less likely to be girls (adjusted odds ratio (AOR) 0.8 (CI 0.7-1.0) and older (AOR 0.3 (CI 0.2-0.4)), but more prone to be stunted (AOR 1.4 (CI 1.1-1.7)) and have younger caregivers (AOR 1.3 (CI 0.7-2.3)). CONCLUSION: The prevalence of disabilities in young Sierra Leonean children was comparable to other countries in West and Central Africa when using the same measure of disability. Preventive as well as early detection and intervention efforts are recommended to be integrated with other programs, e.g vaccinations, nutrition, and poverty reducing programs.