Prevalence and Factors Associated with Anemia among women with Helminthiasis attending Antenatal Care at Fort Portal Regional Referral Hospital.
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Date
2023
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Kampala International University
Abstract
Anemia is a global public health problem that affects around a quarter of the world's population, especially in developing nations (Dorsamy et al., 2022). Its burden is estimated to be around 40% of pregnant women worldwide (Dorsamy et al., 2022). Compared to women who did not have intestinal worms (16.4%), anemia was more prevalent in pregnant women with intestinal worms (55.6%) (Bolka & Gebremedhin, 2019).
Aim: To determine the prevalence and factors associated with anemia among women with helminthiasis attending Antenatal Clinic at Fort Portal Regional Referral Hospital.
Method and Materials: This was a hospital-based cross-sectional study conducted from November 2022 to March 2023. A total of 420 pregnant women with helminthiasis attending ANC at Fort portal regional referral hospital were consecutively enrolled. Interviewer-administered questionnaires and laboratory report forms were used to obtain data. Descriptive statistical analysis followed by binary logistic regression were done. All data analyses were conducted using IBM SPSS statistics version 23.
Results: we enrolled 420 participants, (The prevalence of anemia among them was 26.2%; with 39.1% having mild anemia, 35.5% had moderate anemia and 25.5% had severe form). The factors that independently associated with anemia among women with helminthiasis at the multivariate stage were women who were students (aOR= 0.167, 95% CI: 0.045-0.627, p=0.008), those who took helminthic medications in ≥3months (aOR= 0.107, 95% CI: 0.013-0.882, p=0.038), those whose source of water was borehole (aOR= 0.598, 95% CI: 0.359-0.995, p=0.048) and those who were at gestational age ranging between 14-27 weeks (aOR= 0.567, 95% CI: 0.351-0.915, p=0.020).
Conclusions and recommendations: This study found that the prevalence of anemia among women with helminthiasis at Fort portal regional referral hospital was relatively higher than the regional prevalence. Mild form of anemia remains rampant. Being a student was protective and pregnant women who last took deworming medicines >3 months ago runs risk of suffering from anemia. While taking borehole water was protective and being in a gestational age between 14 and 27 weeks was also protective. Intense health education focusing on iron supplementation and deworming drug prophylaxis adherence to all pregnant women by the health workers.