Background: 

Pathological foot deformities in the adult population are more prevalent in women and many are closely related to ill-fitting footwear. To date, most literature related to footwear and foot health is based on Western society or developed nations. We conduct this study to establish the prevalence of foot deformity in young women working in an urban area.

Materials and methods: 

This is a cross-sectional study on young working women age between 21 years and 40 years through the convenience sampling method. Data on the foot problems were collected through a surveyor-directed questionnaire and clinical examination of the feet.

Results and discussion: 

A total of 400 working women with a mean age of 29.4 years were recruited into the study. More than half (65.0%) of the women had normal body mass index (BMI). About half (52.8%) of the women had foot deformity of different severity, but only 54 (25.6%) of them were aware of these deformities. One hundred and six women (26.5%) had skin hyper-callosity, 47 (11.8%) had hallux valgus, and 46 (11.5%) had lesser toe deformity. Our result showed that the prevalence of foot deformity was much higher in women wearing high-heel shoes to work which was statistically significant (p %3C; 0.001). However, there was no statistically significant relationship between foot deformity with age, race, and BMI.

Conclusion: 

In young working women, deformity of the foot is associated with wearing high-heel footwear to work. Public awareness of the potential adverse effect of high heel shoes may help to reduce the prevalence of non-traumatic foot deformity in these women.

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