Impact of sickle cell disease on work activity

Introduction: Sickle cell disease is a group of conditions caused by anomalous hemoglobin that predisposes people to some clinical syndromes. Because of these recurrent syndromes, patients have difficulty finding and, often, keeping a job.

Objectives: To evaluate the impact of sickle cell disease on the job situation of people with the condition.

Methods: Thirty-two working-age people with sickle cell disease were recruited using the snowball sampling method and underwent semistructured interviews for demographic, socioeconomic, and clinical data collection.

Results: Only 28.1% of the interviewees engaged in paid work, 46.9% had already worked but were not working at the time of the interview, and 25% had never worked. About 6% of participants lived in extreme poverty, and 28.4% lived on the poverty line. Monthly per capita income was less than one minimum salary in 56.2% of cases and less than 1.5 minimum salaries in 9.4%.

Conclusions: Sickle cell disease has an important negative impact on employment situation, as about 70% of working-age people were inactive. This results in a high social cost represented by a very low monthly per capita income (≤ 1 minimum salary) in 93.7% of the participants.