Research Paper

Prevalence Of Goiter Among Primary School Children In Debre Tabor Town, Northwest Ethiopia: A Cross Sectional Mixed Study

Abstract :

Background: There are many explanations for children to underachieve at school such as nutritional, socio cultural, environmental and other factors. Iodine deficiency disorder is the major cause of avoidable brain damage in children resulting in academic deficit. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the prevalence of goitre and its associated factors among school age children.Methods: A school based cross sectional quantitative study complemented with qualitative inquiry was used between March 01/2014 and May 30/ 2014. Two hundred and ninety-four school age children were systematically selected. The data were collected through face to face interviews using a pretested and structured questionnaire. Qualitative data were collected using interview guides. The data were entered into Epi-Info version 3.5, and cleaned and analysed using SPSS version 20. Descriptive summary of the data and logistic regression were used to identify possible predictors using odds ratio with 95% confidence interval and P-value of 0.05. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the qualitative data.Results: The study revealed that the prevalence of goitre was 28.37%. Female students and students whose mothers did not know the prevention of goitre were more likely associated with the existence of goiter than their counterparts were; (AOR: 2.34; 95% CI = 1.10, 4.97) and (AOR: 5.93; 95% CI=2.07, 16.98) respectively. However, students whose mothers completed primary education and who were previously examined/screened for goitre existence were 79% and 99.97% less likely to acquire goitre than their counterparts were; (AOR: 0.21; 95%CI: 0.06, 0.74) and (AOR: 0.03; 95% CI=0.01, 0.17) respectively.Conclusions: Prevalence of goitre is found to be high and iodine deficiency disorder is a severe public health problem. In this study, being female student and mothers lack of knowledge on the preventability of goitre increases the prevalence of goitre. Mothers completion of primary education and early detection of goitre were protective for goitre. Ensuring the consumption of iodized salt, promotion of education and early detection of goitre at the household level are highly recommended.

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