Burden and awareness of anemia among adolescent girls of residential school in Telangana.

Objectives: Adolescence is an important transition phase and the burden of anemia among adolescent school-going children is not well explored. The present study was carried out to determine the prevalence of anemia among school-going adolescent girls and to explore their awareness on anemia.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 217 adolescent girls studying in a residential school of Bibinagar village, Telangana. A pre-tested, semi-structured questionnaire was administered to collect the data. Hemoglobin (Hb) was estimated using TrueHb. Data was entered into excel and was analyzed using SPSS software version 21.

Results: The mean (±SD) age of the adolescent girls was 13.8 (±0.99) years. About 74.2 % of the girls were in 12-14 years' age group. About 91.7 % had attained menarche. The prevalence of anemia was 81.6 % with a mean (±SD) Hb of 9.5 (±2.7) g/dl among adolescent girls. Among the adolescent girls, 32.7 % had severe anemia, 31.8 % had moderate anemia and 17.1 % had mild anemia. About 86.2 % adolescent girls had heard of anemia while 60.8 % adolescent girls felt that anemia is preventable and only 27.6 % were aware about iron-rich foods. About 38 % of adolescent girls were not aware of any causes of anemia.

Conclusions: The prevalence of anemia was very high among the school-going adolescent girls of rural Telangana. The awareness regarding causes of anemia and iron-rich foods was low among study adolescent girls. Thus, there is a dire need to conduct frequent Test, Treat and Talk (T3) Anemia camps in schools through district school health program.