Prevalence, types and demographic features of child labour among school children in Nigeria

BACKGROUND: To determine the prevalence, types and demographic features of child labour among school children in Nigeria. METHODS: A cross-sectional interview study of 1675 randomly selected public primary and secondary school pupils aged 5 to less than 18 years was conducted in the Sagamu Local Government Area of Ogun State, Nigeria from October 1998 to September 1999. RESULTS: The overall prevalence of child labour was 64.5%: 68.6% among primary and 50.3% among secondary school pupils. Major economic activities included street trading (43.6%), selling in kiosks and shops (25.4%) and farming (23.6%). No child was involved in bonded labour or prostitution. Girls were more often involved in labour activities than boys (66.8% versus 62.1%, p = 0.048): this difference was most obvious with street trading (p = 0.0004). Most of the children (82.2%) involved in labour activities did so on the instruction of one or both parents in order to contribute to family income. Children of parents with low socio-economic status or of poorly educated parents were significantly involved in labour activities (p = 0.01 and p = 0.001 respectively). Child labour was also significantly associated with increasing number of children in the family size (p = 0.002). A higher prevalence rate of child labour was observed among children living with parents and relations than among those living with unrelated guardians. CONCLUSION: It is concluded that smaller family size, parental education and family economic enhancement would reduce the pressure on parents to engage their children in labour activities

Prescribing Patterns and Inappropriate Use of Medications in Elderly Outpatients in a Tertiary Hospital in Nigeria

Purpose: To determine the prescribing patterns and occurrence of potentially inappropriate medications (PIM) among elderly outpatients visiting a tertiary hospital in Nigeria. Methods: A retrospective study was carried out among elderly subjects (age ≥ 60 years) who were issued prescriptions in the outpatients department of Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital (OOUTH), Sagamu, Nigeria. Data were obtained on demographics, prescribing indicators and potentially inappropriate medications using Beer’s criteria. Results: Of the 1000 prescriptions consecutively selected, 546 (54.6 %) were for women and 454 were for men, giving a female to male ratio of 1:0.83. The mean age of the subjects was 68.9 ± 7.3 years. Analgesics (756, 75.6 %) were the most commonly prescribed medicines. Prescription of antimalarials was low 127 (12.7 %).The total number of medications prescribed was 3979 while the mean number of medications per encounter was 3.9. The medications prescribed by generic name were 1945 (48.9 %). Encounters with antibiotic and injection prescriptions were 203 (23 %) and 8 (0.8 %), respectively, while the proportion of medications prescribed that were on Nigeria’s essential medicines list or formulary was 95.4 %. Four hundred and fifty six (45.6 %) prescriptions had one or more potentially inappropriate medicine. Medicines with high and low severity for potentially adverse events occurred in 82.7 % and 17.3 % of the cases, respectively. Conclusion: Medication prescribing among the elderly is still suboptimal. Appropriate interventions are required from all stakeholders