The Magnitude of Hidden Hunger and Cognitive Deficits among Children Living in Orphanages in Kumasi, Ghana

Table 2

Nutritional deficiencies by age, gender, length of stay in orphanage, and cognition status.

Variable	Stunting	value	Thinness	value	Iodine deficiency	value
Age (years)
6 to 8	3 (8.1)	0.358	1 (2.7)	0.850	7 (18.9)	0.589
9 to 13	13 (14.0)		2 (2.2)		14 (15.1)
Gender
Boy	9 (13.6)	0.640	2 (3.0)	0.577	12 (18.2)	0.523
Girl	7 (10.9)		1 (1.6)		9 (14.1)
Length of stay (years)
1 to 6	8 (10.7)	0.506	2 (2.7)	0.750	8 (10.7)	0.047
7+	8 (14.5)		1 (1.8)		13 (23.6)
Cognition status
Poor	3 (13.6)	0.086	0 (0.0)	0.701	5 (22.7)	0.274
Good	9 (20.5)		1 (2.3)		9 (20.5)
Excellent	4 (6.3)		2 (3.1)		7 (10.9)

Cognition status was defined as follows: <50% poor cognitive performance, 50% to 69.99% good cognitive performance, and ≥70% excellent cognitive performance. The bold value in Table 2 depicts a significance difference because the p value is less than 0.05.