Prevalence of anemia among women patients visiting a dental hospital

Abstract

Anemia is the decreased oxygen carrying capacity of the blood due to reduction in the concentration of Hemoglobin or RBC. Anemia has a high prevalence and it is considered as a public health issue affecting developed and developing countries. It occurs most commonly in women and children.Prevalence of Anemia worldwide suggests the need for substantial improvement in the nutritional status of women.The aim of the study is to assess the prevalence of Anemia among women patients visiting a Dental hospital. Patient records of a total of 86000 patients who visited the hospital between June 2019 to March 2020 were reviewed and the laboratory values of Hemoglobin levels and RBC count of women patients undergoing complete hemogram were collected from the case sheets of . The age, Hb% and RBC values were collected. The collected data was tabulated in Excel. It was then imported to SPSS software. Descriptive statistics was performed for the obtained results and comparison between groups were done by using Chi square tests. p<0.05 was considered as statistically significant. The prevalence of Anemia among the total women patients was 39.1%. Among the 39.1% women who were diagnosed with anemia, it was found to be more prevalent in the women of age group 40-60 years with a frequency of 17.8%. The most commonly observed range of Haemoglobin is 12-13g/dl with a frequency of 26.6% . 0.6% of women had RBC count less than 3 million cells/mm3. A significant number of female patients were tested with abnormal results. The most common age group diagnosed with Anemia are women belonging to 40-60 years of age. Routine hemoglobin testing in Dental practice of population at risk may be beneficial. Screening of Anemia is essential to avoid late diagnosis.