Helmintíases em crianças afetam índices cognitivos avaliados pelo WISC-IV

Abstract

Cognition is the act or process of knowing, which involves the simultaneous activation of mental instruments such as: perception; attention; processing (simultaneous and successive); memory (working, short and long term); visualization; reasoning; problem solving; interpretation and externalization of information. Children's cognitive functions can be affected by important factors, including the environment, genetic determinants, and health-related factors such as malnutrition, severe diarrheal diseases and intestinal helminth infections. Geohelminthiases are a group of intestinal parasitic diseases caused by the parasites Ascaris lumbricoides, Trichuris trichiura and hookworms: Ancylostoma duodenale and Necator americana, and infections caused by these parasites are classified as neglected diseases and are more present in populations in greater vulnerability In this sense, neuropsychological assessment aims to gather samples of mental functions involved in the learning process correlated with the functional organization of the brain, making it possible to identify brain dysfunctions or lesions. The WISC-IV aims to assess the intellectual capacity of children aged between 6 years and 16 years and 11 months, and can be used in any case where there is a suspicion of a dysfunction of neurological origin in the assessment of different intellectual aspects, including clinical diagnosis of neurodevelopmental disorders. In the present study, we investigated the effects of geohelminthiasis on the performance of indices assessed by the WISC-IV. Thus, 52 children took part in the study, 25 (48.07%) were male and 27 (51.92%) were female. There were 18 children in the 6-7 age group, 17 in the 8-9 age group and 17 in the 10-14 age group. Of the 52 children who took part, 10 (19.23%) tested positive for geohelminth infection, 6 of whom were male and 4 female. In the present study, according to our hypothesis, the analyses showed statistically significant differences associated with p-values < 0.05 in the Verbal Comprehension, Processing Speed and Total Intelligence Quotient indices. However, our results also suggest that other factors may be part of this association, such as the context in which the children participating in the study are inserted, since social, environmental and psychological factors are important in children's development and learning.