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PREVALENCE OF VITAMIN D DEFICIENCY AMONG SCHOOL GOING CHILDREN: AN EXPERIENCE FROM A TERTIARY HEALTH CARE FACILITY OF EASTERN INDIA

Screening of vitamin D deciency is specially recommended in pediatric age group who is more prone for its deciency
and consequent impaired bone mineralization. An Institution based, Observational, Cross-Sectional study with an
objective to nd out the prevalence of vitamin D deciency among children attending pediatric OPD of a tertiary health care facility of Eastern
India. A total of 98 study subjects were selected through systematic random sampling. Serum 25 (OH) D was classied as decient, insufcient,
sufcient, therapeutic, and potential toxicity if the serum concentration was <20ng/ml, 20-29ng/ml, 30-60ng/ml, 61-100ng/ml and >100ng/ml
respectively. Data was analyzed using The Statistical Package for Social Sciences for windows (SPSS, version 20.0). Chi-square test was used to
show association between categorical variables. All statistical tests was 2-tailed and a p-value of <0.05 was considered signicant. Prevalence of
vitamin D deciency and insufciency was found to be 56.1% and 24.5% respectively. Only 19.4% of study participants had normal serum
vitamin D level. Adolescent age, female gender and urban residence were found to be signicant risk factors for hypovitaminosis D. In
conclusion, there is very high prevalence of vitamin D deciency and insufciency. High prevalence especially among adolescent, girls and urban
children calls for an immediate attention of the nutritional policy makers to address this problem.