Impact of Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis on School Attendance and Performance

Juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) includes a group of disorders characterized by chronic arthritis. It is the most common chronic rheumatic illness in children and is a significant cause of morbidity, disability and dysfunction. Therefore, the potential for school attendance and academic performance become compromised and these children are often confronted with educational difficulties. Objectives: To assess the impact JIA on academic difficulty, academic performance, potential causes of absenteeism, school failure and relationship between schooling and different types of JIA. Materials and Methods: All school going JIA patients between 6-16 years of age who had at least 2 years of schooling (1 year before disease onset and 1 year during the course of disease) were included for the analysis. Two hundred JIA patients were selected by purposive sampling method. A detailed questionnaire was completed for each participant which included socio-demographic, clinical and laboratory characteristics, data related to schooling, academic difficulties and their causes, absenteeism and causes, sports and cultural activities, school failure and school re-entry if any. Fifty four controls were taken who were the healthy sibs of those JIA patients having at least 2 previous years of schooling. Results: Mean age of JIA patients were 10.8 years, 67% were male and male female ratio was 2:1. Academic difficulties were observed for reading, writing and both due to disease process and deformity. Number of absent days and poor attendance in examination was significantly higher in JIA patients (p value < 0.001). Moreover, in case group, only 18% had improved result than the academic year prior to disease onset, 3% had no change, 57% deteriorated and 22% stopped schooling. There were 44 cases of school failure among JIA patients, 30 had school re-entry. No children had school failure or re-entry among the control group. Multiple causes of absenteeism like flare, hospitalization, side effects of drugs, movement difficulties, parental non-interest and some other factors like rainfall, delayed rising from sleep etc co-existed for most of the cases. In control group, mean percentage of absenteeism was 1.6%, mostly due to some febrile illness, cold weather, rainfall, lack of transport, sickness of caregiver etc. Children who did not participate in sports activities were 9.3% in control group and 48.5% in case group (p value < 0.001). Conclusion: It is evident from this study that JIA has negative impact on schooling characterized by poor attendance and academic performance.