Prevalence and determinants of anemia among resident female university students from Southern Punjab, Pakistan

ABSTRACT

Health and nutritional status of the women of reproductive age (WRA) is expected to be influenced with women literacy status alongside other sociodemographic indicators. However, data are scant to validate if literate young women have lower incidence of anemia prevalence. Nexus to the problem stated, a cross-sectional study was conducted on 1,541 female resident university students (FRUS) aged 17–35 years from a public sector university located in Southern Punjab, Pakistan. Hemoglobin (Hb) led screening for anemia was performed followed by nutritional assessment and structured questionnaire-based sociodemographic and dietary assessment. The data generated were analyzed using independent t-test, Chi-square, and response surface regression models. Response rate for the prevalence of anemia in FRUS was 38 percent with mean Hb levels 10.5 g/dL. With a significant effect (p = .001) of participants’ weight on anemia prevalence, 22.45 percent of the sample population was recorded as underweight. Sociodemographic and dietary parameters analyzed suggested low daily food expenditure (x² = 20.59; p = .000) and reduced intake of meat (x² = 12.14; p = .01), beans & pulses (x² = 18.56; p = .001) to significantly influence rate of anemia prevalence in FRUS. The study concludes high prevalence rate of anemia among FRUS to strongly relate with students’ low monthly stipend, little daily food expenditure, and substandard dietary quality.

KEYWORDS:

• anemia
• dietary diversity
• food expenditure
• iron deficiency
• micronutrient malnutrition
• university students

Acknowledgment

Authors are thankful to the management of IFS&N for technical assistance and for providing skilled human resource to conduct nutritional assessment.

Authors’ contribution

JK conducted the research, collected data, and prepared first draft of manuscript; AA and SA supervised the study and provided research resources; AL, MAA, and ZAS conducted nutritional screening and dietary assessment of the participants; MA performed data analysis; TI conceptualized the study and drafted the manuscript; and CEL critically reviewed the manuscript. The authors have read the manuscript and approved the final draft for submission. The contents of the manuscripts are original, not published, or submitted for publication elsewhere.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The study was executed in accordance with the ethical principles laid down in the Declaration of Helsinki for human subjects. All parts of the study including the study questionnaire were approved by the Bioethical Committee, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, registration number 05–18. In line with the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors guidelines on privacy and informed consent from the participants of the study, all respondents were informed for the purpose of the study, nature of the information being collected, and methods of the data collection including blood sampling, anthropometric, and dietary assessment. A written consent was solicited from the respondents who agreed to be a part of this study.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported that there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.