Prevalence and associated risk factors of anemia among Non- pregnant women of childbearing age in jimma town, South west ethiopi

Abstract

Background: Anemia affects one-quarter of the world’s population and women are one of the groups it concentrated in, making it a global public health problem. It has a number of impacts in non-pregnant women of childbearing age including reduce working capacity, impaired immunity and beginning pregnancy with depleted iron store and/or hemoglobin concentration. Objective: The aim of this study was to determine prevalence and risk factors of anemia among non-pregnant women of childbearing age in Jimma town, south west Ethiopia. Methodology: A community based cross-sectional study was conducted in Jimma town from June 26 - August 27, 2013. Four hundred forty one representative non-pregnant women of childbearing age were participated in the study. Socio demographic and related data were collected using structured questionnaire. Four ml of venous blood and five gm of stool samples were collected from each study participant. Blood samples were used for complete blood cell count, red cell morphology and hemoparasites. Complete blood cell count was done by CELL-DYN® 1800 (Abbott, USA) for the determination of red cell and hemoglobin parameters. Stool samples were checked for intestinal parasites using both direct wet mount and formol-ether concentration techniques. All descriptive statistics, binary logistic regression and multiple logistic regression analysis were performed using SPSS-V 16 software. Result: The overall prevalence of anemia was 71(16.1%) with mean hemoglobin concentration of 12.96 g/dl (± 1.04) among which 69 were mildly anemic. In morphological types of anemia normocytic normochromic anemia took the highest proportion. Being from 25-36 years old (AOR = 6.53, 95% C.I: 1.82 – 23.39; P = 0.016), lower economic level (AOR = 18.84, 95% C.I: 6.47 – 54.91; P < 0.0001), illiteracy (AOR = 2.16, 95% C.I: 1.67 - 5.18; P= 0.005), multiparty (P < 0.0001), having intestinal parasitic infection (AOR = 3.34 95% C.I: 1.66 - 6.73; P = 0.001), usage of more than two sanitary pads per day during menstruation (AOR = 3.03 95% C.I: 1.43 - 6.41; P = 0.004) and low body mass index (AOR = 4.07, 95% C.I: 1.69 – 9.84; P = 0.002) were found to be risk factors for anemia. But knowledge about anemia and current contraceptive use were identified as they have protective effect. Conclusions and recommendations: In the present study, the prevalence of anemia indicated mild public health importance. It needs a consideration of risk factors identified for prevention and control of anemia among non-pregnant women of childbearing age.