Prevalence of  beta thalassemia, heart failure and valvular abnormalities in children at tertiary care hospital

Objective: to evaluate, stratified by age and educational attainment, the distribution of pediatric beta-thalassemia, heart failure, and valve anomalies in order to find any appreciable variations in the prevalence rates. Methods: A study using a cross-sectional design was carried out on 115 youngsters. There were two age categories of participants: 43.5 percent were between the ages of 2 and 9 and 56.5% were those over 10. Children's educational status was divided into two categories: those who attend school (8.7%) and those who do not (91.3%). Medical records were used to gather information on the prevalence of valvular anomalies, heart failure, and beta-thalassemia. P-values and other statistical analyses were used to assess the significance of variations in prevalence rates among different age and educational groups. Result: 17.4% of participants in the research had beta-thalassemia; there were no significant variations in this condition between age groups (p=0.101) or educational attainment (p=0.820). Children who attended school had a higher prevalence of heart failure (69.6%) than children who did not attend school (34.4%), however this difference was not statistically significant (p=0.625). Children who did not attend school (38.2%) had considerably higher rates of valve anomalies than children who attended school (8.6%); a p-value of less than 0.001 indicated a highly significant difference. Conclusion: The study finds no significant changes in the prevalence of beta-thalassemia or heart failure across age and educational status, but it does show a substantial difference in the prevalence of valvular anomalies between children who attend school and those who do not. These results highlight how crucial it is to address socio-economic and educational gaps in order to improve health outcomes for communities that are already at risk.