IJCM_65A: Prevalence and severity of anemia and its association with age and gender in patients attending rural health clinic in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh: A retrospective study.

Abstract

Background: Anemia is major public health concern and mainly affects young children, pregnant and postpartum women, and menstruating adolescent girls and women. As reported by WHO, 40% of all children aged 6–59 months, 37% of pregnant women and 30% of women 15–49 years of age are affected by anemia globally. The situation is even worse in India with the prevalence being 67%, 52.2% and 57% respectively, as reported by NFHS-V. Objective: To estimate prevalence of anemia and its severity stratified by age and gender in patients attending Rural Health Training Centre (RHTC), Jawan, Aligarh. Methodology: A retrospective observational study using routine clinical data of 402 patients attending general OPD of RHTC from January 1, 2022 to December 31, 2022 was performed. Pregnant females and patients who had more than one determination of hemoglobin during the study period were excluded from the study. Anemia was defined according to WHO criteria. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 20.0., descriptive statistics and Chi Square test were applied. P value Results: 40.5% of patients were males while 59.5% were females. The overall prevalence of anemia was found to be 93.3%. Anemia was most prevalent in children <5 years (95.7%). Females had significantly higher prevalence of anemia (97.4%) as compared to males (86.3%). (p<0.001) Conclusion: Prevalence of anemia was found to be very high in patients attending Rural Health Clinic. Targeted interventions like screening programmes, iron and folic acid supplementation and health education should be strengthened for decreasing prevalence of anemia especially in women and young children.