Menstrual Health Awareness amongst Adolescent Girls: A Literature Review

Abstract

Menstrual Hygiene is one of the important aspects of adolescent health which is often ignored particularly in developing countries such as India. In this regard onset of menstruation is often a period when adolescent girls don't have any knowledge about the healthy practices during menstruation. Many studies have reported that adolescent girls particularly from developing world have inadequate knowledge of maintenance of hygiene during menstruation. Many young girls don't have luxury of using sanitary pads and are forced to use cloth and then wash it and reuse it during next cycle thus making them vulnerable for genitourinary tract infection which may sometimes be serious and life threatening such as toxic shock syndrome. Proper knowledge about hygienic menstrual practices needs to be imparted to adolescent girls by mothers, nurse, nurse educator, nurse researcher and nurse administrator. We undertook this literature review with an aim to understand level of awareness about menstrual hygiene in Indian adolescent girls.