Document Type

Article

Publication Date

6-2026

Identifier

DOI: 10.1186/s12883-026-04887-5; PMCID: PMC13281243

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Nigeria is among the leading countries contributing to the burden of cerebral palsy. Cerebral palsy (CP) is the commonest physical disability in childhood, accounting for 16.2% of child neurology referrals. Many cases of CP are preventable with simple interventions such as neonatal resuscitation and effective phototherapy. Lack of reliable data on the burden of disease limits comprehensive national policy directed to the prevention, holistic care and rehabilitation of patients with cerebral palsy in Nigeria. Therefore, to effectively address this problem, this study aimed to describe the pooled prevalence of CP in Nigeria, its potential causes and types.

METHODS: This was a systematic review and meta-analysis of published articles on Nigerian children less than 18 years with CP. A combination of controlled vocabulary and keyword searching was used to reflect the core concepts of CP in Nigeria. Searches were conducted in nine databases and articles were screened using Rayyan. Data extraction forms were developed and refined by the team. Risk of Bias Tool was derived from the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT) 2018.

RESULTS: One hundred and twelve articles were initially included following title/abstract screening from 330 distinct articles. Thirty-nine studies involving 194,831 children were eventually included in the review with about half (18/39) from the South-West. The pooled prevalence of CP in Nigeria was 32.5% (95%CI 25.5-39.9%) in neurology/physiotherapy clinics, 1.7% in the general Paediatric clinic/admissions, and 0.22% (95%CI 0.20-0.24%) in community settings. A higher proportion of individuals with CP were male (59.4%) compared to female (40.6%). Asphyxia and neonatal jaundice were the leading causes of CP accounting for 37.1% (95%CI 31.3-43.2%) and 24.8% (95%CI 20.4-29.5%), respectively. There was a high degree of heterogeneity in most of the data on prevalence, types and causes of CP (I

CONCLUSION: This review highlights the high prevalence of CP in Nigeria. Tackling the leading preventable causes of CP calls for urgent public health interventions such as improved obstetric and neonatal care, in addition to improved rehabilitation services for children with CP.

Journal Title

BMC neurology [electronic resource]

Volume

26

Issue

1

MeSH Keywords

Humans; Cerebral Palsy; Nigeria; Prevalence; Child; Female

PubMed ID

42067836

Keywords

Aetiology; Cerebral Palsy; Children; Nigerian; Prevalence

Comments

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

Publisher's Link: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12883-026-04887-5

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