Hypovitaminosis D in Healthy Health Care Professionals: A Real Deficiency or Necessity of New Reference Value for Specific Population?
Keywords:
health care professionals, hypovitaminosis D, risk factors, vitamin D deficiencyAbstract
Introduction:
Vitamin D, a steroid vitamin, has attracted noticeable interest of clinicians and researchers for decades because of its diverse array of biological functions. Various studies have shown that the level of vitamin D is low in significant proportion of healthy individuals. However, indoor workers especially health care professionals are not focused, particularly in Nepal. We aimed to measure level of vitamin D in apparently healthy health care professionals.
Methods:
A descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out in apparently healthy health care professionals working at Kathmandu University Hospital in Dhulikhel, Nepal. Structured questionnaire including sociodemographics, dietary habits, and anthropometric measurements was filled in by the participants. Total serum 25-hydroxy vitamin D was measured by Chemiluminescence Immunoassay (CLIA) technique. Results were analyzed with t-test, Chi-square test, and Pearson correlation test.
Results:
Data from 64 female and 47 male were analyzed, mean 25-hydroxy vitamin D level was 8.81 ng/dl (SD = 4). Almost all (98.2%, n = 109) participants had vitamin D lower than normal where 72.7% (n = 92) were deficient, 24.5% (n = 17) were insufficient, and only 2.7% (n = 2) were having adequate level. Non-specific body pain was the only factor among all we studied that was significantly associated with vitamin D levels (p = 0.002).
Conclusion:
Hypovitaminosis of 25-hydroxy vitamin D was found to be very common (98.2%) in apparently healthy health care subjects of Dhulikhel Hospital. This may necessitate further research to redefine the biological reference value for our population.
Downloads
434
414
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
The Journal of Lumbini Medical College (JLMC) publishes open access articles under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution(CC BY) License which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.JLMC requires an exclusive licence allowing to publish the article in print and online.
The corresponding author should read and agree to the following statement before submission of the manuscript for publication,
License agreement
In submitting an article to Journal of Lumbini Medical College (JLMC) I certify that:
- I am authorized by my co-authors to enter into these arrangements.
- I warrant, on behalf of myself and my co-authors, that:
- the article is original, has not been formally published in any other peer-reviewed journal, is not under consideration by any other journal and does not infringe any existing copyright or any other third party rights;
- I am/we are the sole author(s) of the article and have full authority to enter into this agreement and in granting rights to JLMC are not in breach of any other obligation;
- the article contains nothing that is unlawful, libellous, or which would, if published, constitute a breach of contract or of confidence or of commitment given to secrecy;
- I/we have taken due care to ensure the integrity of the article. To my/our - and currently accepted scientific - knowledge all statements contained in it purporting to be facts are true and any formula or instruction contained in the article will not, if followed accurately, cause any injury, illness or damage to the user.
- I, and all co-authors, agree that the article, if editorially accepted for publication, shall be licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0. If the law requires that the article be published in the public domain, I/we will notify JLMC at the time of submission, and in such cases the article shall be released under the Creative Commons 1.0 Public Domain Dedication waiver. For the avoidance of doubt it is stated that sections 1 and 2 of this license agreement shall apply and prevail regardless of whether the article is published under Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 or the Creative Commons 1.0 Public Domain Dedication waiver.
- I, and all co-authors, agree that, if the article is editorially accepted for publication in JLMC, data included in the article shall be made available under the Creative Commons 1.0 Public Domain Dedication waiver, unless otherwise stated. For the avoidance of doubt it is stated that sections 1, 2, and 3 of this license agreement shall apply and prevail.
Please visit Creative Commons web page for details of the terms.
