A study to assess the knowledge regarding practices of menstrual hygiene and RTI among high and higher secondary school girls: an educational interventional study

Abstract

Background: Menstruation still a taboo subject to whisper and so, more difficult to discuss the hygiene, practices, perception and myth associated with it. The very ancient socio -cultural restrictions still play a major role in plenty of reproductive tract infections left undiagnosed. Thus resulting in the potential loss of economy in terms of GDP, medical costs, and status of health. The objectives of the study were to assess the awareness, source of information and problems regarding menstrual hygiene at pre-questionnaire stage and to compare the assessment of awareness at post questionnaire stage after educational intervention provided among the study group; to find out the mean age of menarche among the study group; to find out the knowledge regarding symptoms of reproductive tract infections among the study group; to inculcate safe hygienic practices during menstruation so as to percolate the same during reproductive episodes e.g. termination of pregnancy or uterine bleeding etc. Methods: Convenient sampling with Semi-structured questionnaire method. A girls’ government school chosen for the study with 197 girls including class standard 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th. After the session of pre questionnaire, all girls were included in the study who were present on the day. Results: On statistical analysis, mean age of menarche among girls is 13.5 years. Data regarding awareness level found statistically significant after the completion of study. Conclusions: Satisfactory improvement in hygiene level found post intervention. It could be implied on massive level in all the schools in country. In conformity with, Indian government also came up with the programme of provision of free sanitary pads in government schools.

Menstrual Hygiene Practice among Adolescent Girls in the Public Schools of Mahalaxmi Municipality in Lalitpur District

“…11 Another consistent result showed that 41.1% of them took daily bath. 15 A study done in Mysore, India found 82.9% of respondents cleaned their genitalia every time they visit the toilet, which was nearly similar to the current study result. 5 A study done on field area of Gandhi Medical College, Bhopal showed that 15.7% of respondents washed genitalia with only water which contradicts with present study with 72.6 precentage.…”

“…5 A study done on field area of Gandhi Medical College, Bhopal showed that 15.7% of respondents washed genitalia with only water which contradicts with present study with 72.6 precentage. 15 This discrepancy might be due to difference in geographical variations of the adolescent girls and their accessibility to information through different media regarding menstrual hygiene.…”

Menstrual Hygiene Preparedness Among Schools in India: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of System-and Policy-Level Actions

“…Another barrier to a comfortable and dignified experience of MHM among girls was the lack of or limited awareness as reported in 92 studies (Table 2) [16,18,[23][24][25][26]31,[33][34][35][36][37][39][40][41][42][43][44]48,49,[51][52][53][54][55]57,58,[62][63][64][65][67][68][69][70][71]77,78,[80][81][82][83][84][85]87,89,90,92,93,95,…”

Review on Menstrual Hygeine.

“…(6) In another study done 32.99% girls approved that there is absence of privacy for changing pads while 29.94% responded that there is no space or dustbins for discarding of menstrual pads in school. (7) In majority of cases (62%) information about menstruation was from mother to female teen .while the second majority of information was from friends (30%) and (5%) got information about menses from media like television and newspapers and (3%) got information from relatives. Television programmes about mensuration and menstrual education by trained health care nurses and doctors provide information to Adolescent girls about menstrual hygiene.…”