Socio-Demographic Profile of Adults with Sickle Cell Disease in Osun State, Nigeria

Background: Forty years ago, both the life expectancy and quality of life of sickle cell disease (SCD) patients were low. Pinpointing the current demographic distribution of SCD patients will help in planning for the basic medical requirements for optimum care, enable indirect assessment of the success of different programs presently in place as well as determining if past efforts have yielded expected results.

Aim: Therefore, the study is directed at investigating the socio-demography of adult SCD patients in Osun state.

Methods: The study participants consisted of 98 adults, randomly selected from different health facilities. Questionnaires (pre-tested) were administered to all participants for the collection of data on socio-demographic parameters. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were performed and statistical significance was set at P < .05.

Results: The age distribution; highest academic attainment, socioeconomic status (SES), and marital status of participants were influenced by Hb genotypes, as Chi-square showed significant relationship between genotypes and (1) age (X2 = 104.55,P = <.001); (2) marital status (X2 = 115.55, P = <.001); (3) parity (X2 = 116.97,P = <.001); (4) educational status (X2 = 110.89,P = <.001) and (5) SES (X2 = 107.40,P = <.001), with HbSS patients having more participants with low SES and low academic attainment. Moreover, fewer of HbSS attained the age range of 36-45 years [15% HbSS vs 31% HbSC vs 42% HbAA] or were in a committed relationship [26% HbSS vs 56% HbSC vs 72% HbAA] compared with those with HbAA or HbSC.

Conclusion: The study suggests that much effort is still required to increase both the quality of life and life expectancy of SCD patients.