Orphaned children face several socio-economic challenges and psychological problems. They are exposed to low self-esteem that in turn leads to face difficulties of maintaining quality of life. This study is aimed to assess risk factors that may affect self-esteem status of orphans. A cross sectional study was conducted on orphans aged 5-18 years old at a local district Kacha-Birra, Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples Regional State of Ethiopia. From a total of 3270 orphans in the

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... , 508 were selected using stratified random sampling technique. Data were collected with a designed questionnaire based on the Rosenberg's rating scales to measure their self-esteem levels. Self-esteem with a score less than or equal to average score was determined to be low. Binary logistic regression model was employed to analyze the data. The results of the study revealed that prevalence of low self-esteem among the child orphans was 57.3%. Several risk factors were found to be significant at 5% significance level. Increased risk to low self-esteem was due to: parent not living together before death, weak relationship between parents before death, low average monthly income, death of both parents, death due to AIDS, change in home circumstance for orphan, lack of love-care-support from care givers, stigma and discrimination. There are many orphans with low self-esteem in the study area. The factors negatively affecting self-esteem of the orphans mainly include the unhealthy social life of parents. Parents should be aware about the consequences of decisions they make about their health and social life on their children's future self-esteem.