Study of prevalence of anaemia and its socio demographic co-relates among adolescent girls of Bhopal city
Background: The present study was planned to assess the prevalence of anemia and study its socio-demographic correlates among adolescents’ girls of 10-19 years in Bhopal city (M.P).Methods: The study was conducted as a community based cross-sectional study on 640 adolescent girls residing in selected ward and willing to participate in the study. Detailed history as mentioned in questionnaire was obtained. Assessment of the anemia status was carried out using Hemoglobin Color Scale (HCS). Descriptive statistics and inferential statistics chi square test were used for the inferential statistics. P<0.05 was considered statistically significant.Results: Prevalence of anemia among adolescent girls was 72.8%. Anemia was found to be highly significantly associated with education and occupation of parent’s, socio economic status and BMI (p<0.05). Also, anemia was significantly associated with birth order, amount and days of menstrual blood flow (p<0.05)Conclusions: Anemia is highly prevalent in adolescent girls. Evidence suggests that there is need to emphasize on corrective measures for anemia in adolescent girls of 10-19 years before they enter adolescence so as to compensate the additional requirement for growth and development during puberty and combat the extra losses during menstruation.