Study of Prevalence of Anaemia and Impact of Iron Supplementation in School Children

Abstract

Anaemia is the most widespread nutrition problem in the world and has predominance in developing countries like India, particularly in children and women. The magnitude of anaemia has been well-documented in pregnant women and infants, but there is scarce data on the prevailing occurrence of anaemia in school children. The current study was undertaken to know the point prevalence of anaemia and the comparative effectiveness of twice a week iron supplementation program to daily supplementation program in enhancing the hemoglobin levels in children aged 10-14 years with different grades of anemia in high schools in and around Kakinada, East Godavari district, Andhra Pradesh. METHODSA total of 400 children in the age group of 10-14 years were included in this study from both government and private schools by random sampling. After estimating the point prevalence of anaemia by Sahli's method all the children were given a single dose anti-helminthic and the children who were anaemic were further randomly divided into two subgroups A and B and allotted to either a daily or a twice weekly iron supplementation regimen respectively. The haemoglobin was again assessed after three months. RESULTSPoint prevalence of anaemia among these children was 95.75%. Prevalence of anaemia was significantly higher amongst girls (97.8%) as compared to boys (93.9%). Prevalence of anaemia was nearly equal in government (96%) and private (95.5%) schools. Mean improvement in Hb% of 2.23gm% and 1.98gm% was seen in daily and weekly twice iron groups respectively with no significant difference between two groups. Reduction in prevalence of anemia was 86% in daily iron and 80% in weekly twice iron regimen group. Daily iron group experienced more side effects (15.1%) when compared to weekly twice iron group (8.1%). CONCLUSIONThis study shows that the point prevalence of anaemia in school children is high. Supervised iron and folic acid therapy twice a week is as effective as daily administration to lower the prevalence of anaemia with fewer side effects, less cost and better compliance.