Abstract:

Background: Africa has highest burden of sickle cell anemia (SCA) where up to 75% of the 300,000 global births of SCA per year occur and where childhood mortality remains high, Tanzania being the third country in Africa to have the highest birth rate of SCA but still there is little awareness on sickle cell complication that’s caused by SCA. There is a need of parents to understand and be aware a of sickle cell anemia complications that their children face.

Objective: To determine the awareness of sickle cell anemia complications among caretakers of sickle cell anemia children attending at Bugando Medical Centre’s pediatric clinic.

Methodology: A cross sectional study was conducted among a minimum number of 186 care takers of sickle cell anemia children attending at Bugando Medical centre pediatric clinic. The sampling method was simple random, and questionnaire was used to obtain data which was analyzed by using SPSS program. Quantitative data was summarized numerically. This was computed by giving quantitative measures of center (median and mean). Univariate analysis was done using the t-test for continuous variables and chi-square for categorical variables. Ethical clearance was sought from the joint CUHAS and BMC research and ethics review committee.

Results: Most of participant’s children were of age group 6-10 years and majority of participant caretakers 37.4% had completed university or college education. Participants had good knowledge, practice and attitude towards SCA complications after scoring marks above 50 marks to 100 marks.

Conclusion: Parents/guardians attending SCA pediatric clinic at BMC had good knowledge, practice and attitude towards SCA complications among pediatrics which contributed by marital status (married) of participants. Medical session concerning SCA should be continued delivered to parents/guardians attending pediatric clinics, also medical session should consider participants with low level of education to make sure that they understood the session.