European Journal of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences

ENDOCRINE HEALTH IN SCHOOL TEACHERS FROM PRIMARY, HIGH, AND HIGHER SECONDARY SCHOOLS OF SOUTH TAMILNADU, INDIA

Kumaravel Velayutham*, Rohini Gomathinayagam, Balaji Ramanathan, Arulvani Murugan and
Sivan Arul Selvan

ABSTRACT

Introduction and Background: A rise in the incidence and prevalence of endocrine disorders has been attributed to lifestyle changes, environmental influences and stress. Interesting findings also indicate that educational systems evidence stress related endocrine dysfunctions in particular, in the teachers population. However, knowledge regarding the incidence and prevalence of endocrine disorders in teachers from south Tamil Nadu is limited/unavailable. Hence the present study aims to examine, identify population based endocrine disorders in school teachers. Methods: Primary, high, higher secondary school teachers belonging to five different schools were screened for general and endocrine health. Assessment of sociodemographic status, anthropometric measurements, and biochemical evaluations were carried out in order to identify the endocrine, endocrine related abnormalities in the chosen school teachers’ population. In brief, age, sex, height, weight, blood count, Hb, blood pressure, fasting blood glucose, HbA1c, urea, creatinine, uric acid, serum calcium, lipid profile and FT4 (free T4), TSH (Thyroid stimulating hormone) were determined. Results: Cumulative clinical data analysis indicates that 16.93% of teachers were healthy without endocrine abnormalities, 30.31% of the teachers presented with dyslipidemia, 29.92% had thyroid dysfunctions, 16.14% had diabetes mellitus and 5.12% of the teachers had other endocrine abnormalities such as PCOS. Of note 22.4% of the dyslipidemic patients, 24% of the thyroid patients, 15% of the diabetic patients and 4.5% of the patients with other endocrine diseases were obese. Teachers in the age group of 40-60 represented the maximum percentage with obesity/abnormal BMI. The results further bring to light that about 2.76%, 6.10% of the teachers were identified/newly diagnosed with diabetes mellitus, thyroid dysfunctions by means of this study. Significant variations in the levels of triglycerides, HDL levels and was observed and interestingly, the primary school teachers exhibited the lowest percentage of incidence of thyroid, diabetes, dyslipidemia and other endocrine diseases when compared to high, higher secondary school teachers. Conclusion: The higher secondary school teachers tended to be relatively obese and present endocrine, multiple endocrine dysfunctions. The data strongly suggests that screening for endocrine health in school teachers would enhance performance, job satisfaction in teachers and procure a significant elevation in students’ performance.

Keywords: A rise in the incidence is limited/unavailable.