Table 3. Progressive stages of iron deficiency according to demographic variables.
| Covariates | Iron depletion | Cellular iron deficiency | Iron deficiency anaemia | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N (%) | OR (95% CI) | P value | N (%) | OR (95% CI) | P value | N (%) | OR (95% CI) | P value | |
| Gender | - | - | - | - | - | - | |||
| Female | 783/2885 (27.1) |
ref | - | 495/2843 (17.4) |
ref | - | 130/2794 (4.6) |
ref | - |
| Male | 322/2876 (11.2) |
0.32 (0.28–0.37) |
<0.001* | 167/2857 (5.8) |
0.28 (0.23–0.33) |
<0.001* | 28/2785 (1.0) |
0.20 (0.13–0.31) |
<0.001* |
| Age | - | 0.013 | - | <0.001* | - | 0.008* | |||
| ≥16 | 627/3343 (18.8%) |
ref | - | 323/3303 (9.8) |
ref | - | 78/3297 (2.4) |
ref | - |
| <16 | 475/2304 (20.6%) |
1.19 (1.04–1.37) |
336/2281 (14.7) |
1.74 (1.47–2.06) |
79/2281 (3.5) |
1.55 (1.12–2.14) |
|||
| Ethnicity | - | 0.002* | - | <0.001* | - | 0.002* | |||
| Tamil | 312/1470 (21.2) |
ref | - | 214/1454 (14.7) |
ref | - | 61/1401 (4.3) |
ref | - |
| Sinhalese | 690/3697 (18.7) |
0.75 (0.64–0.88) |
<0.001 | 420/3650 (11.5) |
0.73 (0.61–0.88) |
0.001 | 89/3592 (2.5) |
0.57 (0.40–0.80) |
0.001 |
| Muslim | 104/595 (17.5) |
0.81 (0.63–1.04) |
0.104 | 27/595 (4.5) |
0.28 (0.19–0.43) |
<0.001 | 8/586 (1.4) |
0.33 (0.16–0.70) |
0.003 |
| Altitude (m) | - | <0.001* | - | 0.703* | - | 0.674 | |||
| >1000 | 33/250 (13.2) |
ref | - | 31/250 (12.4) |
ref | - | 8/250 (3.2) |
ref | - |
| 500–1000 | 152/693 (21.9) |
2.64 (1.73–4.03) |
<0.001 | 74/693 (10.7) |
1.21 (0.76–1.92) |
0.431 | 11/625 (1.8) |
0.84 (0.33–2.18) |
0.726 |
| <500 | 920/4818 (19.1) |
1.65 (1.13–2.42) |
0.010 | 557/4756 (11.7) |
1.10 (0.74–1.64) |
0.639 | 139/4703 (3.0) |
1.12 (0.54–2.34) |
0.763 |
| Total | 1105/5761 (19.2) |
- | - | 662/5699 (11.6) |
- | - | 217/5368 (3.9) |
- | - |
* P value for the variable in multiple regression analysis