Prevalencia de anemia en la población pediátrica de una comunidad rural del Paraguay y su asociación con el estado nutricional Prevalence of anemia in the pediatric population of a rural community in Paraguay and its association with nutritional status

INTRODUCTION: Anemia remains a prevalent public health problem in pediatric population of developing countries. The ob jective was to determine the prevalence of anemia in children of the community of Yvyraty (Paraguari, Paraguay) and evaluate its association with nutritional status. MATERIAL AND METHOD: Cross-sectional study with an analytical component. Anthropometric data were collected and blood was taken from a sample of 94 children between the ages of 2 and 18 years old. The Chisquare test was used to determine sex-anemia and anemia-age associations; hemoglobin-eosinophilia and hemoglobin-nutritional status were analized using Student’s t test and KruskalWallis analysis, respectively. In all cases considered a statistical significance when p <0.05. RESULTS: The prevalence of anemia in the sample was 19.1%. From the anthropometric assessment 70.2% have a normal weight, 14.9% were at risk of malnutrition, 6.4% had moderate malnutrition and 8.5% were overweight. No significant difference was found between sex or age and the presence of anemia (p = 1 and p = 0.4 respectively) or between acute or chronic nutritional indicators and hemoglobin (p = 0.3 and p = 0.5 respectively). Association was observed between the presence of eosinophilia and hemoglobin levels (p = 0.04), with a mean difference of 0.36 g / dl (95% CI: 0.19 - 0.71). DISCUSSION: The prevalence of anemia in the pediatric population of Yvyraty was 19.1%, and was not associated with nutritional status, but eosinophilia.