Socio-demographic factors associated with anaemia among adolescents in Hajipur village of Katihar district, Bihar

Abstract

Aim: To study the various socio-demographic factors associated with anaemia among adolescents. Methodology: A Community based cross sectional descriptive study. Hajipur village, a rural field practice area of Department of Community Medicine, Katihar Medical College, Katihar, Bihar. Four hundred adolescents (213 boys and 187 girls). Systematic random sampling technique was used. Data collected was entered in Microsoft Office Excel and analysed by using SPSS version 20.0. Results: Among 400 adolescents(213 boys and 187 girls) the largest number of adolescents 41.5% belonged to 10-14 years age group followed by 32.5% and 26% in the 15-17years and 18-19 years age groups respectively. Factors such as level of education of adolescents, mother's education, socioeconomic status, father's occupation, family type were found to be significantly associated (p<.0001) with the prevalence of anaemia in adolescents. Conclusion: It was concluded that adolescent's illiteracy and mother's illiteracy, low socioeconomic status, father's occupation such as labourer, nuclear families were significantly associated (p<.0001) with high prevalence of anaemia among adolescents. It is essential to implement adolescent friendly health services as recommended by WHO to improve the nutritional status.

Keywords

• adolescents
• education
• socioeconomic status