Ugwu Chinonso Victoria¹*, Aloysius Nwabugo Maduforo¹ and Agatha Nneka Obayi²

¹Nutrition and Dietetics Department, University of Nigeria Nsukka, Enugu State, Nigeria
²Health Education Department, University of Nigeria Nsukka, Enugu State Nigeria

*Corresponding Author: Ugwu Chinonso Victoria, Nutrition and Dietetics Department, University of Nigeria Nsukka, Enugu State, Nigeria.

Received: August 01, 2022; Published: January 12, 2023

Abstract

The prevalence of malnutrition in Nigeria has been an age long problem. There is dearth of data on the magnitude of nutrition status and anaemia among adolescents in Nigeria; moreover there are consequential effects of iron deficiency anaemia. Iron deficiency anaemia is a major global and public health problem affecting many people. The study assessed the nutritional status and prevalence of anaemia among in-school adolescents of urban and rural communities in Nsukka local government area, Enugu State, Nigeria. A cross sectional study of stratified simple random sample by ballot without replacement was used to select 375 in - school adolescents (10-19 years) of government owned secondary schools in Nsukka Local Government Area. Socio-demographic, anthropometric, and health information were elicited with the use of validated questionnaire. Blood samples were obtained from 20% (75) of the sample size (375) to assess biochemical parameter (haemoglobin (Hb). Biochemical data was categorized with WHO standards to classify anaemic and normal subjects. Data was subjected to statistical analysis using Statistical Product and Service Solution version 21. Descriptive result was presented as frequency, percent, mean and standard deviation. Inferential analysis was performed with Pearson’s correlation and chi-square, significant level was set at p < 0.05. Result showed that 69.3% of the respondents were females, while 30.7% were males. More (48.5%) of the respondents were in the age range of 14-16 years (middle adolescence). Result obtained from the Hb indicated that 25.3% of the respondents were anaemic. There was a statistical significant (p < 0.05) association between BMI class and iron status of respondents. The study shows that a substantial amount of the adolescents were underweight and had iron deficiency anaemia.

Keywords: Adolescents; Anaemia; Iron Deficiency; Haemoglobin; Prevalence

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Citation

Citation: Ugwu Chinonso Victoria., et al. “Nutritional Status and Prevalence of Anaemia among In-school Adolescents in Urban and Rural Secondary Schools in Nsukka Local Government Area, Enugu State, Nigeria". Acta Scientific Nutritional Health 7.2 (2023): 65-69.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2023 Ugwu Chinonso Victoria., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.