AEGiS-15IAC: AIDS epidemic and the psychological well-being and school participation of Ethiopian orphans.

15th International AIDS Conference

Bangkok, Thailand - July 11-16, 2004

AIDS epidemic and the psychological well-being and school participation of Ethiopian orphans.

Int Conf AIDS 2004 Jul 11-16; 15:(abstract no. E10009)

Bhargava A, Bhargava A
University of Houston, Houston, United States

BACKGROUND: The AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa is seriously undermining the psychological well-being and school attendance of the affected orphans.

METHODS: This paper modeled the proximate determinants of the scores on 60 items from the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI) and of school participation of approximately 1,000 children who had lost their mothers due to AIDS and other causes using the data from a survey in Ethiopia. The scores on MMPI items reflecting emotional and social adjustment and school participation before and after mothers' deaths were modeled in a multi-disciplinary framework incorporating the time sequence of events.

RESULTS: The main findings were that while AIDS orphans scored lower on the MMPI items, variables such as presence of the father, household income, feeding and clothing conditions, and attitude of the fostering family were significant predictors of the children's scores. Secondly, girls were at a disadvantage in terms of the MMPI scores. Third, school participation after maternal deaths increased for some children while it was lower for others partly due to greater income-generating work. Fourth, variables such as income and feeding and clothing conditions were significant predictors of school participation. Fifth, the results underscored the importance of school participation before mothers' death on subsequent participation probabilities. An ordinal regression and selectivity models were estimated to address endogeneity problems.

CONCLUSIONS: Subsidies to fostering households for food and clothing and facilitating school participation would enhance child welfare and contribute to economic growth in Ethiopia.

Keywords: AEGIS, Foster Home Care, Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, Africa South of the Sahara, Schools, Disease Outbreaks, Family Characteristics, Emotions, Demography, Family, Personality, Child Welfare, Income, Data Collection, Ethiopia, Child, Humans, Female

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E10009