Abstract

Background: Prevalence of anemia is higher in girls in low socioeconomic status; In addition it gets precipitated by blood loss during menstruation. Anemia in adolescent girls in future attributes to high maternal mortality rate, high incidence of low birth weight babies, high perinatal mortality and fetal wastage.

Methods: This was cross-sectional study. All the adolescent girls studying in standards 9th - 12^th class who were given consent to hemoglobin estimation were included in the study. The girls ≥20 years, and those suffering from any chronic disease were not included in the study. A total of 1000 girls were interviewed and were investigated for their Hemoglobin concentration. A predesigned and pretested schedule was used to collect the information about the participants.

Results: Most of the girls i.e.970 (97%) belonged to the socioeconomic class II, III, IV. The association between SES and anemia was found statistically significant. The association between mother education and anemia was also found statistically significant but association between type of family and anemia was also found statistically Insignificant.

Conclusion: Nutrition education along with nutritional supplementation and iron folic acid tablets should be provided to all girls.

Keywords: Adolescent Girls, Anaemia, Socio-Demographic Characteristics, Education.