Abstract
Introduction: Nutritional status and morbidity profile of children goes hand in hand. Personal hygiene is a prime factor playing a pivotal role in above two domains and thereby influencing health of an adolescent girl in the period of growth spurt and development.
Objective: The study aimed to assess the nutritional status, morbidity profile and to find out their predictors among school going adolescent girls in a slum area of Kolkata.
Materials and Methods
Study design-A school based cross-sectional study.
Study area- It was conducted in a Government Secondary Girls’ school situated in a slum area of Kolkata Municipal Corporation.
Sampling method- Complete enumeration method.
Study population- All the students of class V – VIII fulfilling the inclusion criteria were included after taking informed consent from the guardians.
Method of data collection- Interview with a predesigned and pretested questionnaire.
Results: The mean age of participants was 12.17 ± 1.255 years. Overall under nutrition was 67.3% among the students. Majority of the students were suffering from hair related morbidities (73.7%), ENT related morbidities (85.32%), oro-dental morbidities (77.1%), dermatological morbidities (61.2%), and G.I.T related morbidities (84.4%) and specific nutrient deficiencies (68.5%). Multivariate analyses revealed other than socio-demographic factors poor personal hygiene was an important risk factor of under nutrition and high morbidities among the students.
Conclusions: Awareness generation, motivation and behavioural change communications in schools will play a major role in improvement of personal hygiene and thereby resulting in a healthy adolescent.
Keywords: Personal hygiene, Morbidity, Nutritional status, Adolescent girls, School, Slum.
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DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.18535/jmscr/v5i7.65
