Prevalence of anemia among adults at Hawassa University referral hospital, Southern Ethiopia.

Introduction: Anemia is a public health problem in Ethiopia. In spite of the fact that anemia is a common health burden with much severe consequences, the prevalence of the different types of anemia and its severity have not yet been well documented in different parts of the country. The study aimed to assess the prevalence of different types of anemia, including severity and association with age and sex of study population.

Materials and methods: Four hundred anemic patients who are men and non-pregnant women above 15 years of age were selected from patients visiting the laboratory for Complete Blood Count (CBC) investigation. The type and severity of anemia were assessed based on red cell indices and haemoglobin levels respectively. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 19. Chi square was used at 95% confidence interval, considering P < 0.05 statistically significant for association among categorical variables.

Result: The overall prevalence of anemia in the study was 13%. Majority of cases had mild anemia 58.5%, while 19.0%, and 22.5% of the patients had moderate and severe anemia respectively. Overall, the prevalence of mild anemia increases with age, while the prevalence of moderate and severe anemia decreases as age increases. In the present study, the most common anemia was normocytic, which mostly occur in the elderly (61-85) years of age.

Conclusion: The CBC parameters help to diagnose and classify anemia in to major components, which might help for a better treatment practice in developing countries, where additional investigations are not available for a reliable diagnosis and classification of anemia. Despite resource limitations in developing countries, additional anaemia work up such as iron studies and markers of inflammation, will provide a more efficient diagnosis of anaemia.