Abstract summary 

Children with learning difficulties are vulnerable to internalizing symptoms, particularly anxiety and depression. However, only few studies have examined this relationship in low-and-middle-income countries using a nationally representative data.This study aimed to examine the relationship between learning difficulty and internalizing symptoms of children aged 5-17 years in Ghana while controlling for covariates.We analyzed children's data using mothers'/caregivers' reports from the 2017/2018 Ghana Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey Six (MICS 6). Data of 8,958 children aged 5-17 years were used for the analysis.About 20% of the children had some learning difficulties whereas 5% could not learn at all. Learning difficulty was associated with symptoms of anxiety and depression of children. Specifically, children who had some learning difficulties had higher odds of feeling anxious [APOR = 1.28, 95% CI:1.11, 1.49, p = 0.001] while those with some difficulties [APOR=1.24, 95% CI:1.07, 1.44, p = 0.004] and a lot of difficulties or could not learn at all [APOR=1.74, 95% CI:1.28, 2.37, p < 0.01] had higher odds of feeling depressed.The findings call on stakeholders in education and health to prioritize the mental health of all school-going children, particularly those with learning difficulties in Ghana.

Authors & Co-authors:  Norman Queen Angela QA Dey Nutifafa Eugene Yaw NEY Owusu Ansah Kenneth K Arthur-Holmes Francis F Duah Henry Ofori HO Agbadi Pascal P

Study Outcome 

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