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Abstract:
Background: Nutritional anaemia is of more concern in young female having high prevalence rate due to dietary iron deficiency. The medical students come under the vulnerable group that suffer anaemia because of having long schedule of studying in college, clinical postings, and other curriculum activities. The purpose of this study was to assess the association between BMI, eating habit with anaemia among medical students. Methods: A cross sectional study conducted at OMC Sohar. This survey based study for which a structured questionnaire was designed incorporating demographics and nutritional assessment that were identified through an extensive literature search. All final year female medical students requested to fill a survey questionnaire. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS (IBM SPSS Statistics 20.0). Results A total of 63 female students were participated in the study with age ranged from 23 to 27 years in which 50 (79.4%) were aged below 25 years. Majority of the participants were Omani national (90.5%), residing in the hostel (87.3%) and were single (85.7%). More than half (57.1%) of the participants having 3 meals a day and 61.9% ingest dairy products such as milk, yogurt or chees and 74.6% feed on legumes or eggs once in a day. More than half take in protein such as meat, chicken or fish (61.9%) and fruits and vegetables (58.7%) in a day. Mean serum haemoglobin of study participant was 11.95+-1.3 gm/dl More than half (58.7%) participants found to have anaemia. Overall, statistically significant association was observed (p-0.05) between fruits and vegetables intake in a day and haemoglobin. Conclusion The prevalence of anaemia in female medical students is significant in this study. Nutritional deficiency varies in different population and young females are at risk. Medical students spend their lives in a very high competitive and challenging environment; there is a need to have balanced nutrition and healthy life style.
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