Nutritional Anemia Status in Adolescent Girls in Rural Schools of Raipur, India

Abstract

Introduction: Nutritional deficiency, especially iron deficiency is the most common etiological factor for anemia, particularly in adolescent girls when the requirement for iron increases tremendously to physiological need. Aim: This study not only would highlight the burden of nutritional anemia in them, but also it would aid in drawing recommendations and rendering suggestions to assess and maneuver the existing schemes. The aim was to estimate the prevalence of anemia among school going girls to associate anemia to their demographic profile and nutritional status. Materials and methods: This was a community based cross sectional observational study. The demographic profile was collected followed by estimation of Iron profile and Vitamin B12 levels estimation among 382 adolescent girls aged 10 to 18 years, in schools at rural area of Raipur district, India. Results: Iron and vitamin B12 deficiency was present in 11% and 58% respectively. Statistically significant association was observed between severity of anemia serum ferritin (p<0.01) but not with serum vitamin B12 levels. Conclusion: Anemia in adolescent girls was found to be very common. Moreover, Vitamin B12 deficiency was more common than iron deficiency in adolescent girls. There is need to shift the focus from old paradigm of iron deficiency anemia to other forms of anemia basically vitamin B12 deficiency anemia, as observed from this study.