Undernutrition and Associated Factors Among School Adolescent Girls Attending Schools in Mirab-Armachiho District, Northwest Ethiopia

Abstract

ABSTRACT Substantial proportions of adolescent girls are suffering from undernutrition; despite they are considered as future mothers. Undernourished mothers are more likely to give birth to an offspring with impaired growth and development. Hence, investigating adolescents’ undernutrition had a pivotal role to tackle the problem. Therefore, this study aimed to assess undernutrition and associated factors among adolescent girls in Mirabarmacho district, Ethiopia. An institution-based cross-sectional study was conducted from March to April 20, 2018, in the Mirab Armachiho district, using the multistage cluster sampling method. A total of 706 adolescent girls was included in the study. The World Health Organization Anthro Plus software was used to calculate nutritional indices. A Binary Logistic Regression Analysis was used to check the effect of independent variables with adolescent wasting and stunting. The overall prevalence of wasting and stunting was 17.3% (95%CI: 14.6–20.1) and 10.3% (95%CI: 8.2–12.7), respectively. Being in the 10–14 years age group (AOR:2.47,95%CI:1.21–5.06), inadequate Dietary Diversity (Dietary Diversity Score) (AOR:2.46,95%CI:1.45–4.20),food-insecure households (Adjusted Odd Ratio:2.62,95%CI:1.33–5.16),middle wealth index(Adjusted Odd Ratio:1.94,95%CI:1.07–3.51), febrile illness (Adjusted Odd Ratio: 3.12,95%CI:1.94–5.03), diarrheal disease (AOR:3.61,95%CI:2.08–6.28), merchant fathers (Adjusted Odd Ratio:0.40, 95%CI:0.20–0.82),and government employee fathers (Adjusted Odd Ratio:0.27,95%CI:0.09–0.84) were factors significantly associated with thinness, while inadequate Dietary Diversity Score (Adjusted Odd Ratio: 8.07, 95%CI; 4.02–16.20) and febrile illness (Adjusted Odd Ratio; 2.49, 95%CI: 1.48–4.18) were factors relating to the adolescent stunting. Adolescent wasting and stunting are predominant problems in the survey region. Strengthening efforts to ensure household food security, diversified food intake, and prevention and control of infectious diseases are recommended to mitigate adolescent’s undernutrition.