English

Abstract

BACKGROUND Children from rural areas and urban slums suffer from poor quality of life. In spite of several health programmes in existence, conditions such as infections, malnutrition etc. continue to be major threats leading to morbidities among school children. This study was conducted to evaluate the various morbid conditions prevailing among school going children and compare the urban and rural scenarios in Visakhapatnam district. METHODS A cross sectional study was conducted between November 2018 and October 2019 (1 year) among secondary school children studying in classes 6 th to 10th (age between 11 and 15 years) of three randomly selected government schools in urban and rural areas. A total of 800 school going children was considered (400 from three rural and 400 from three urban schools) for the study. Prior approval from the Institutional Ethics Committee was taken for the study. Data was collected by using a pre-tested questionnaire. Clinical examination was conducted to detect any morbidity. RESULTS The most common morbid condition was found to be anaemia. The prevalence of anaemia was 47.12 %, followed by nose, throat, and eye conditions (33.87 %, 22.5 % and 30.75 % respectively) and morbidity of oral cavity (30.62 %). The prevalence of skin infections such as pediculosis and tinea and other fungal infections was 24.87 %. CONCLUSIONS Children in urban schools were found to be suffering more from skin, nose and throat abnormalities and anaemia as compared to children from rural schools who had ocular problems especially signs of Vitamin A deficiency along with anaemia. KEYWORDS Morbidity, School Children, Rural and Urban Areas