Errayya Dowrula1, Venkata Durga Prasad Vithanala2, Sunita Sreegiri3, Phani Madhavi Kajana4, Devi Madhavi Bhimarasetty5
BACKGROUND
Children from rural areas and urban slums suffer from poor quality of life. In spite
of several health programmes in existence, conditions such as infections,
malnutrition etc. continue to be major threats leading to morbidities among school
children. This study was conducted to evaluate the various morbid conditions
prevailing among school going children and compare the urban and rural scenarios
in Visakhapatnam district.
METHODS
A cross sectional study was conducted between November 2018 and October 2019
(1 year) among secondary school children studying in classes 6th to 10th (age
between 11 and 15 years) of three randomly selected government schools in urban
and rural areas. A total of 800 school going children was considered (400 from
three rural and 400 from three urban schools) for the study. Prior approval from
the Institutional Ethics Committee was taken for the study. Data was collected by
using a pre-tested questionnaire. Clinical examination was conducted to detect
any morbidity.
RESULTS
The most common morbid condition was found to be anaemia. The prevalence of
anaemia was 47.12 %, followed by nose, throat, and eye conditions (33.87 %,
22.5 % and 30.75 % respectively) and morbidity of oral cavity (30.62 %). The
prevalence of skin infections such as pediculosis and tinea and other fungal
infections was 24.87 %.
CONCLUSIONS
Children in urban schools were found to be suffering more from skin, nose and
throat abnormalities and anaemia as compared to children from rural schools who
had ocular problems especially signs of Vitamin A deficiency along with anaemia.
