Otitis media (OM) is one of the severe healthcare problems in the world because of the suffering it poses upon the patient and the family and because of the economic burden; it forces the health care system. This study was conducted to evaluate the parental perceived impact of otitis media on cognitive and educational outcomes amongst selected children with the purview of examine the impact of otitis media on cognitive development ;to investigate the impact of otitis media on educational achievement and to identify risk factors affecting otitis media of selected children attending Lasuth, Lagos state.Simple random sampling technique was used to select 101 amongst children attending the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Lagos in accordance with their hospital information. Data collection spanned two months using a self-developed questionnaire. Both descriptive and inferential statistics (chi- square) were used to analyse the data generated and level of significance was set at 5% (0.05). The result showed that One hundred and one respondents and their children with mean age 33.01±5.75 and 3.76±1.94 respectively. There were 60 females (59%) and 41 males (41%), Fifty-one (51%) of the 101 children with otitis media were from the lower socio-economic class, whereas 28(28%) and 21(21%) were from the middle and upper socio-economic class respectively. Moreover, acute otitis media 52(51%) was more common than chronic otitis media 49(49%) in children from the lower socio-economic class. Hypotheses testing revealed that there is no significant impact of otitis media on cognitive development amongst children attending the Lasuth, Lagos state, Nigeria (X2 =4.098 and p = 21.03 at 0.05 significant value) and otitis media has no impact on educational achievement amongst children attending the Lasuth, Lagos state, Nigeria (X2 =2.874 and p = 21.03 at 0.05 significant value). In conclusion, passive smoking and decline in breastfeeding, children with persistent otitis media, the degree of hearing loss, parenting style, and access to medical care, children hearing loss before the age of 12 months and rural area children who suffer otitis were risk factors affecting otitis media amongst children attending the Lasuth, Lagos state.
Keywords: Cognition, educational outcome, otitis media
