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Although sub-Saharan Africa has the world's highest rates of early pregnancy, there is little awareness of pregnancy and parenting among young people in out-of-home care in this region. Therefore, this study looked into the experiences of pregnancy and parenting among young women who had been in residential care in Ghana and Uganda. We gathered data from ten parenting care leavers in both countries using semi-structured interviews and then analyzed the data from the interviews thematically. The study's findings revealed that the young mothers had minimal sexual and reproductive health education, as well as a lack of sufficient monitoring, which predisposed them to early pregnancy. The young mothers indicated that emotional stress, financial and employment obstacles, as well as stigma, were some challenges they had experienced. They used personal motivation and spirituality as coping mechanisms to deal with their challenges. Training caregivers to deliver sexual and reproductive health information, having practitioners who will offer supervision during the semi-independent phase of leaving care, and providing separate housing for young mothers are some implications for practice emerging from the study. Policy implications include the need for social inclusion programs to support the academic, vocational, and parenting skills of young mothers who leave care., (© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2022.)

Background: Albinism is a genetic condition caused by a deficit in the production of the pigment called melanin, which protects the skin against ultraviolet light and provides the skin with its color production. The condition may predispose persons with albinism (PWAs) to lifelong physical and health problems, such as visual impairment and ultra-violet induced skin damage. Due to this condition, we explored the challenges faced by persons living with albinism as they socialize in Lilongwe District, Malawi., Method: The study adopted an interpretative phenomenological approach and included 30 participants comprising 13 females and 14 males with albinism and three key informants from Association of People with Albinism in the Lilongwe district in Malawi. Data were collected through in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. Van Manen's (2014) six steps of phenomenological analysis was used to analyze all data., Results: People with albinism face a variety of problems, the most common of which are financial constraints, health complications due to a lack of adequate medical care, a lack of community support leading to stigma and discrimination, and superstitious beliefs., Conclusions: People with albinism suffer socially as a result of misconceptions, behaviours, social isolation, labelling, and beliefs that are negatively correlated with their disorder. PWAs face these problems as a result of public misunderstanding about albinism., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest., (© 2021 The Author(s).)

Background: The literature posits that HIV knowledge is associated with precautious sexual behaviour and practice. We hypothesised and investigated the association between knowledge of HIV transmission and adolescent pregnancy in Ghana, given that the relationship between HIV knowledge and adolescent pregnancy has not been extensively studied., Methods: We did analyses on 5836 cases (weighted as 5121) of 15-24 years old reproductive age women in the female dataset of the 2017 Multiple Cluster Indicator Survey. Adolescent pregnancy was operationalized as reproductive age women between 15-24 years who became pregnant before the age of 18 years. Accurate HIV knowledge was measured by computing the scores of correct responses on six questions exploring women's knowledge about HIV transmission. We accounted for sample design and weight before performing a Chi-square test of independence and Poisson regression., Results: The results indicate that having lower scores on the HIV transmission knowledge scale was correlated with a higher probability of girls becoming pregnant before their 18 th birthday. After controlling for the moderating effect of socio-demographic characteristics of the participants, we found that accurate HIV transmission knowledge loses its statistical significance in determining adolescent pregnancy. The factors that remain significant in the adjusted model were formal education status, household wealth, and region of residence. HIV transmission knowledge was statistically significantly related to adolescent pregnancy in the model after the education level variable was omitted. This observation was due to the significant effect of school education on other variables in the model. This result demonstrates that HIV knowledge has a major impact on adolescent pregnancy, but this effect is predicated by formal education attainment of the adolescent girl., Conclusions: Given the results, adolescent pregnancy issues can be resolved by the government and other development partners by adequately educating adolescents about HIV transmissions. Also, because they have the potential to reduce pregnancy among adolescents in Ghana, we recommend that programs and initiatives should address existing disparities in formal educational attainment and household wealth., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest., (© 2021 The Author(s).)

Background: Functional difficulties have long-term implications for children's physical, cognitive, emotional, social, and academic growth and development. Although the subject of functional difficulties has received enough scholarly attention in the developed world, few studies have addressed the issue in Ghana. Therefore, the study aimed to regress child, maternal and household and geographical level factors associated with the functional difficulty of children in Ghana., Method: We analysed the 2017/18 multiple indicator cluster survey dataset. The study sample consists of weighted cases of 21,871 children within the ages of 5-17 years. Summary statistics were produced for the study variables. Bivariate analyses were performed to select significant correlates for the multivariate analysis. We accounted for sample design and weight before using Poisson regression techniques to do the bivariate and multivariate analysis., Results: These factors were significantly associated with functional difficulties among 5-17 years old children in Ghana: not covered with health insurance, mothers who have a functional difficulty and those without information on their functional difficulty status, and children who dwelt in richer households compared to the richest households. Compared to the northern region, children from the remaining nine regions in Ghana were more likely to have had a child functional difficulty., Conclusion: Given the results, the government of Ghana and other development partners should promote policies and programs to reduce the consequences of disability or functional difficulties in children by taking into consideration factors like mothers' functional difficulty, access to health insurance, and regional and economic disparities in Ghana., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest., (© 2020 The Author(s).)