Frequency of nutritional anemia among female medical students of Faisalabad

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE Anemia is a common health problem worldwide. This problem is most commonly faced by 18 to 25 years of females. Medical students especially female hostelites poses high risk of anemia because of their poor eating habits, breakfast skipping, long schedule in college, burden of medical studies, clinical postings, and extra-curricular activities. Therefore the current study was designed to determine the hemoglobin status in young female medical students. We also elucidate its association with BMI. METHODS A cross sectional study was conducted at The University of Faisalabad during December 2015 to February 2016. A total of 221 female students were recruited by convenient sampling technique. All relevant information about participants was taking by administering structured questionnaire. Participants were categorized as hostelities and day scholars for comparison. Study subjects were also sub grouped on the bases of their BMI. Hemoglobin, MCV, MCH and MCHC were estimated at Madina Teaching Hospital Faisalabad. Statistical analysis was performed on SPSS 20. RESULTS Mean age of the study subjects was 19.92 ±0.93. 33.4% of the students were found to be anemic. Significantly high number of hostelites (39.2%) were anemic as compared to day scholars (23.1%) (P value= 0.015*). On analyzing by BMI categories, greater number of underweight subjects was found to be anemic as compared to normal and overweight subjects. CONCLUSION Anemia is more prevalent in hostelites as compared to day scholar female medical students which might also affect the efficiency of these students.