Morbidity patterns among school students in east Delhi Rupali Roy, Senior Resident, Kamal Agrawal, Professor, A.T. Kannan, HOD, Professor Dept. of Community Medicine, UCMS & GTBH, Delhi. Abstract Background The health of the school children in adolescence period has a lot of implications for health problems in adults. Among all the observed morbidities it was seen that malnutrition is the most common one. Reported morbidities were malnutrition, dental ailments, worm infestation, skin disease, eye diseases, anemia and respiratory infections. 9th&10th class school students are on the threshold of adulthood. In Delhi there are very few studies which have been conducted among 9th&10th students to assess their health status in a comprehensive manner and to screen and advise the needful. Objectives To study the pattern of the current morbidities and to find out the relationship between various socio-demographic variables of the students and health status. Methodology Cross-sectional examination 9 and 10 class students in East Delhi schools from November 2006 to December 2007. The sample size was 400. Results Majority of the students were in the age group of 14/15 which was around 79%. In this study most common current morbidity was found respiratory infection (61.5%), others included fever (25.2%), pain abdomen (16.5%), conjunctivitis (14.2%) and toothache (7%). Refractive error was seen among 20% of students. In hemoglobin estimation 14.5% girls were severe anemic. Current morbidity was significantly associated with age, gender, religion and type of family. Conclusion The health status of the 9th and 10th class students of our study were consistent with those seen among the adolescents around the world. Top Key words morbidity, school students, health status, Delhi. Top |