Assessment of Iodine Status of the School Going Children of Suryodaya Municipality, Ilam

Abstract

Abstract Iodine deficiency disorder (IDD) is a major micronutrient deficiency problem in Nepal. This study was conducted with objective to measure the Urinary Iodine Excretion (UIE) and attempts were made to relate urinary iodine with salt use and other sociodemographic variables of household of primary school children of Suryodaya municipality of Ilam district of Nepal. A community based cross section study was conducted in two schools of study area selected randomly (lottery method). A total of 202 school children of 6-12 years were recruited for the study to collect urine and salt samples for UIE and Salt Iodine Content (SIC) measurement respectively and detail information of study population was achieved from their household. UIE was measured by ammonium persulphate digestion microplate (APDM) method and SIC was estimated by rapid test kit (RTK). Data were expressed in frequency, mean±SD and median, Inter Quartile Rang (IQR) according to the nature of data. Chi-square test, Mann-Whitney U test and Kruskal-Wallis test were used to test the significance considering p≤0.05 at 95% confidence interval. It was found that Median Urinary IE of the study population is 152.14 μg/L. Overall it was found that 30.7% children had urine iodine level less than the normal WHO levels. The availability of adequately iodized salt was 93.1% as measured by RTK. There was statistically significant association between consumed salt iodine content and urine iodine excretion level (P < 0.05). This survey result concluded that the median UIE of the study population indicates the adequate iodine intake and optimal iodine nutrition in study population. This study shows that IDD should be continuously monitored and awareness program should be implemented focusing on importance of iodized salt, its practice and storage in preserving iodine of salt and obtaining optimal iodine level. .