The association between social support with compliance of IFA supplement intake among adolescent girls in Sidoarjo, Indonesia

Abstract

Anemia is a severe nutritional issue affecting peopleworldwide, including in Indonesia. One of the government’s initiatives toalleviate anemia afflicting adolescent Indonesian girls is iron and folicacid supplementation (IFAS). However, this program has shown to beineffective, which may be due to poor compliance of IFAS. Aim: Thisstudy aimed to identify the association of social support (sources ofinformation and reminders) with compliance of IFA supplements intakeamong adolescence girls in Sidoarjo, Indonesia. Methods: This researchwas an observational analytic study with cross-sectional method in threeschools in Sidoarjo, Indonesia. A total of 202 high school adolescent girlswere randomly selected. Bivariate statistics with the Spearman rank testdetermined associations and the strength of associations at a significantthreshold of p < 0.05. Results: IFA compliance was low (11.4%).However, there was a significant association between the number ofsources of information (r = 0.175, p = 0.013) and the number ofreminders (r = 0.158; p = 0.025) with compliance of high schooladolescent girls to consume IFA supplements regularly in Sidoarjo,Indonesia. Meanwhile, age did not significantly affect compliance ofregular IFA supplements consumption. Conclusions: The compliance levelwas positively related to the number of sources of information and thenumber of reminders for taking IFA supplements among high schooladolescent girls. Involvement from social environments such asteachers, parents, and health workers as a source of information andreminders can help improve high school adolescent girls’ compliance.