Prevalence of and Associated Factors of Stunting among Adolescents in Tehuledere District, North East Ethiopia, 2017

Background: Increased nutritional needs of adolescents relate to the fact that adolescents gain up much of their adult weight, height and skeletal mass during this period. Under nutrition among adolescents is a major public health problem in developing nations including Ethiopia. Moreover, adolescents have been considered a low risk group and often receive little attention. This study aims to assess the prevalence and associated factors of stunting among adolescents in Tehuledere district, Northeast Ethiopia, 2017 Methods: A school based cross sectional study was conducted among 535 secondary school adolescent age group students from 1st April to 20th April 2017 in Tehuledere district. Systematic random sampling technique was employed for selecting study subjects. A standardized, pre tested and structured self-administered questionnaire was used to collect the data. The outcome variable was measured with standardized anthropometric measurement. Data was entered using Epi info version 7 and analyzed using SPSS version 20 and WHO Anthro Plus soft wares. Crude and adjusted odds ratios with 95% level significance were used to measure the strength of association and statistical significance was declared at p-value less than 0.05. Results: The overall prevalence of stunting among the adolescents (10-19 years) was 15.5%. After possible potential confounders were controlled; being male (AOR=2.394 95% CI=1.425, 4.022), being in the age group 13-16 (AOR=2.106 95% CI=1.261, 3.516), using unsafe drinking water supply (AOR=3.721 95% CI=1.397, 9.913) and having no latrine facility (AOR=3.311 95% CI=1.569, 6.988) were found significantly associated with stunting at P value <0.05 Conclusion: The study revealed that prevalence of stunting was still high beside the surplus of food in the study area. Therefore, improving nutritional status of adolescents is imperative through providing comprehensive and routine nutritional assessment and counseling services for adolescents at community, school and health facility levels. Further analytic studies are recommended to identify unexplored underlying causes of stunting among adolescents.