Barriers to and Facilitators of Iron and Folic Acid Supplementation within a School-Based Integrated Nutrition and Health Promotion Program among Ghanaian Adolescent Girls

Lucas Gosdin; Andrea J Sharma; Katie Tripp; Esi F Amoaful; Abraham B Mahama; Lilian Selenje; Maria E Jefferds; Usha Ramakrishnan; Reynaldo Martorell; O Yaw Addo

doi:10.1093/cdn/nzaa135

Barriers to and Facilitators of Iron and Folic Acid Supplementation within a School-Based Integrated Nutrition and Health Promotion Program among Ghanaian Adolescent Girls

Curr Dev Nutr. 2020 Aug 11;4(9):nzaa135. doi: 10.1093/cdn/nzaa135. eCollection 2020 Sep.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Nutrition and Health Sciences, Laney Graduate School, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA.
² Nutrition Branch, Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity, CDC, Atlanta, GA, USA.
³ Abt Associates, Atlanta, GA, USA.
⁴ Nutrition Department, Ghana Health Service of Ministry of Health, Accra, Ghana.
⁵ UNICEF-Ghana, Cantonments, Accra, Ghana.

Abstract

Background: Anemia is a moderate public health problem among adolescent girls in Ghana.

Objectives: We aimed to evaluate the barriers to and facilitators of program fidelity to a school-based anemia reduction program with weekly iron and folic acid (IFA) supplementation.

Methods: Authors analyzed directly observed weekly IFA consumption data collected longitudinally and cross-sectional data from a representative survey of 60 secondary schools and 1387 adolescent girls in the Northern and Volta regions of Ghana after 1 school year (2017-2018) of the intervention (30-36 wk). A bottleneck analysis was used to characterize the levels of IFA coverage and used adjusted generalized linear mixed-effects models to quantify the school and student drivers of IFA intake adherence.

Results: Of girls, 90% had ever consumed the tablet, whereas 56% had consumed ≥15 weekly tablets (mean: 16.4, range: 0-36), indicating average intake adherence was about half of the available tablets. Among ever consumers, 88% of girls liked the tablet, and 27% reported undesirable changes (primarily heavy menstrual flow). School-level factors represented 75% of the variance in IFA consumption over the school year. Total IFA tablets consumed was associated with the ability to make up missed IFA distributions (+1.4 tablets; 95% CI: +0.8, +2.0 tablets), junior compared with senior secondary school (+5.8; 95% CI: +0.1, +11.5), educators' participating in a program-related training (+7.6; 95% CI: +2.9, 12.2), and educator perceptions that implementation was difficult (-6.9; 95% CI: -12.1, -1.7) and was an excessive time burden (-4.4; 95% CI: -8.4, -0.4).

Conclusions: Although the program reached Ghanaian schoolgirls, school-level factors were barriers to adherence. Modifications such as expanded training, formalized make-up IFA distributions, sensitization (awareness promotion), and additional support to senior high schools may improve adherence. Spreading the responsibility for IFA distribution to other teachers and streamlining monitoring may reduce the burden at the school level. Strengthening the health education component and improving knowledge of IFA among students may also be beneficial.

Keywords: adolescent girls; anemia; iron and folic acid; national IFA program; secondary school; supplementation.

Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Society for Nutrition 2020.