Smokeless tobacco (Mishery) use among adolescent girls-a neglected entity

Abstract

In India there is wide spread misconception that, tobacco is good for teeth,so prevalence of application of tobacco products as dentrifice is commonly seen.Objectives: 1.To assess the prevalence of mishri use in adolescent girls of community adopted under UHTC,Karad.2.To study the factors associated with and implications of mishri use on nutritional status of adolescent girls.Materials and Methods: A cross sectional study was carried out in the population covered by the Urban Health Training Centre, Department of Community Medicine, K.I.M.S., Karad, Maharashtra, India. All adolescent girls in the age group of 10 to 19 years were interviewed by house to house survey. The data was collected using pretested structured proforma.Dietary intake was assessed using 24 hour recall method.Haemoglobin was estimated by Sahli’s haemoglobinometer and statistical analysis was undertaken using SPSS 16 software.Results: Significantly higher proportion (83.8%)of mishri users were in late adolescence. Mishri use in mothers was associated with mishri use in daughters(x2=3.73 ,d.f.=1,p<0.053).Majority of adolescents using Mishri were non enrolled in the school or were school dropouts.All mishri users had mild to moderate anemia.No significant difference was observed in mean height,weight,BMI as well as intake of calorie,protein and iron intake among users and non users of mishriConclusion:Mishri use was more in late adolescent age group, in those who were not enrolled in school,among school drop outs and whose mothers were mishri users. Use of mishri was not found to have effect on the dietary intake and growth. However moderate anemia was more.