Investigation of prevalence of short stature and etiologic causes in pupics in primary schools in the center of Düzce province

Objectives: In this study, it has been aimed to study short stature prevalence and the etiological reasons of pathological short stature in primary school students from different socioeconomic levels in the center of the province of Düzce.Material and Methods: Totally 8117 students (3849 female, 4268 male) within 5-19 age range were chosen by means of stratified sampling in such a way to represent all students in their own age range in the center of Düzce. Necessary permits were obtained from Düzce Governorship and Directorate of National Education after the approval of Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Medicine of Düzce University had been granted. Students were informed about the medical screening with a sociodemographic information survey. The research was conducted by 2 researchers and intern doctors under the supervision of the thesis advisor academician and height ? weight and puberty evaluations of children were made in the schools. The height SDSs were calculated by the ?Büyüyorum Version 1.2? electronic software that was supplied by Novonordisk and the students with < ? 2.5 SDS were deemed to have pathological short stature. These cases were summoned to Düzce University Faculty of Medicine Pediatrics Policlinic and examined for determining the etiological reasons. The data of our study was analyzed by SPSS 17.0 software and p< 0.05 was accepted significant for all statistical analyses.Results: In total, short stature prevalence was determined to be %2.94 (height <3p or z score < -2 SDS). When the distribution of this data is examined according to gender; short stature was determined to be %2.88 in males and %3.01 in females. Pathological short stature prevalence, on the other hand, was measured to be %0.8 ( height < - 2.5 SDS). The distribution of pathological short stature was % 46.5 in females and %53.5 in males. The height percentile values and curves of students in the city center of Düzce were established. 0.62 percentile curve corresponds to -2.5 SDS and represents pathological short stature curve. There was no relation between other demographic factors and the low socioeconomic level related to short stature.Conclusions: Pathological short stature was observed more commonly among children with a low socioeconomic level in primary education age group. Moreover, it is very obvious that racial and genetic factors play important role. It is very important to discern children with pathological short stature having growth problem from healthy children who are variants of normal. For this reason, 0.62 percentile curve was used in this survey. Thus, unnecessary examinations, loss of time and psychological stress of the child were avoided. We determined that using 0.62 percentile curve that was not found in standard height percentile curves will reduce the risk that the doctors working in first stop health services might misdiagnose the pathological short statures.Key Words: Short stature, pathological short stature, prevalence, etiology, childhood