Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2019 Oct 22:10:351-357.
doi: 10.2147/JBM.S216613. eCollection 2019.

Prevalence, Morphological Classification, And Factors Associated With Anemia Among Pregnant Women Accessing Antenatal Clinic At Itojo Hospital, South Western Uganda

Claire Catherine Okia  1 , Boaz Aine  1 , Ronald Kiiza  1 , Patrick Omuba  1 , Robert Wagubi  1 , Enoch Muwanguzi  1 , Richard Onyuthi Apecu  1 , Benson Okongo  1 , Caesar Oyet  2
Affiliations

Prevalence, Morphological Classification, And Factors Associated With Anemia Among Pregnant Women Accessing Antenatal Clinic At Itojo Hospital, South Western Uganda

Claire Catherine Okia et al. J Blood Med. .

Abstract

Purpose: The study aimed to determine the prevalence, morphological classification, and risk factors of anemia among pregnant mothers attending antenatal clinic at Itojo hospital, Ntungamo district, southwestern Uganda.

Patients and methods: After obtaining an informed consent, 5mL of blood was collected from the vein of each participant for complete blood count (CBC) and peripheral film report. The CBC was performed using HumaCount 80 hematology analyzer (HUMAN Gesellschaft für Biochemica und Diagnostica mbH Max-Planck-Ring 21 65,205 Wiesbaden Germany). Peripheral blood smears were made and stained using Wright's Romanowsky stain and examined under ×1000 magnification for morphological classification of anemia. Structured questionnaires were administered to each participant to collect information on patients' demography and risk factors of anaemia in pregnancy. The data generated were prepared in EXCEL and later transferred to SPSS version 20 for analysis. Univariate logistic regression and multivariate logistic regression were used to evaluate the association of socio-demographic characteristics of the participants with anemia. A 95% confidence level was used and statistical significance was reached at p<0.05.

Results: One hundred and sixty-three participants (n=163) were recruited for the study with the median age of 25 years and range of (17 to 40 years). The overall prevalence of anemia was 12 (7.4%), the morphological classification was 1 (8.3%) normocytic normochromic anemia, 6 (50%) microcytic hypochromic anemia, and 5 (41.7%) macrocytic anemia. Spouse occupation (p=0.03), household income (p=0.04), use of insecticide-treated mosquito nets (p=0.001), history of urinary tract infection (p=0.002), use of haematinics (p≤0.001), and history of postpartum hemorrhage (p=0.03) were significantly associated with anemia in pregnancy.

Conclusion: Despite the reported high prevalence of anemia in pregnancy in other areas within the country, anemia prevalence was low in this study. Routine screening for anemia at all antenatal care clinics countrywide is recommended.

Keywords: anemia; pregnancy; prevalence; risk factors.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Pie chart showing the Overall Prevalence of Anemia among Pregnant Women at Itojo Hospital.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Morphological classification of anemia based on peripheral blood smear.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. WHO G. WHO Methods and Data Sources for Global Burden of Disease Estimates 2000-2011. Geneva: Department of Health Statistics and Information Systems; 2016.
    1. Sharma JB. Anaemia in pregnancy. Differ Diagn Obstetr Gynaecol. 2008;19.
    1. Breymann C, Bian X-M, Blanco-Capito LR, Chong C, Mahmud G, Rehman R. Expert recommendations for the diagnosis and treatment of iron-deficiency anemia during pregnancy and the postpartum period in the Asia-Pacific region. J Perinat Med. 2011;39(2):113–121. - PubMed
    1. Black RE, Victora CG, Walker SP, et al. Maternal and child undernutrition and overweight in low-income and middle-income countries. lancet. 2013;382(9890):427–451. - PubMed
    1. De Benoist B, Cogswell M, Egli I, McLean E. Worldwide Prevalence of Anaemia 1993–2005; WHO Global Database of Anaemia. WHO Press. 2008. - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources