Prevalence of Iron Deficiency Anemia and Its Correlation with Nutrition Status Among Adolescent School Girls: Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

1. Objectives: The ultimate malnutrition consequence in adolescence is anemia. A cross-sectional study was conducted to evaluate dietary factors contributes to the anemia among girls.

Methodology:After taking ethical approval from the Institutional Ethical Board, a random sampling technique was used to enrolled 130 school girls aged 12â€16 years as study group from District D.I.Khan, Kp, Pakistan.  The informed written consent was obtained and blood samples were collected to perform whole blood counts for screening of anemic girls. The socio-economic, demographic and dietary information such as age, weight, height, family monthly income, education level, medicine intake, non-vegetarian or vegetarian, menstrual issues, junk food, were collected on a self-designed questionnaire. The statistical analysis was performed by using SPSS.

Results:The prevalence of anemia was 82% among urban and rural adolescent girls with statistical significant value p=0.001. The mild anemia 43.84%, whereas, severe anemia 13% was observed among girls of rural area aged among 15-16years. The majority of girls 70.7% were underweight and 93% had mix dietary pattern. The 86.1% girls were regularly taking junk foods and irregular menstrual pattern reported by 44.1% with > 5day menstruation duration in 87.6% girls. Family size of various students was ≥5 people and they were less consuming eggs and fish.   

Conclusion: The anemia prevalence is a health issue especially girls residing in rural areas and the majority of them are unaware of iron rich diet.  There is a needed to prepare public health system for anemia-related programs to create awareness and promote intake of iron rich foods by adolescents.