Comparison of Menstrual Hygiene Awareness and Practices among School going Adolescent Girls of Government and Private Schools

Abstract

Introduction: Menstruation is an important milestone in a girl's life, which marks the beginning of her reproductive life. Awareness about menstrual hygiene is a vital aspect of health education among menstruating girls to avoid insufficient and incorrect information regarding menstruation. Aim: To find the awareness and their hygiene practices about menstruation among adolescent girls in government and private schools. Materials and Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among 200 adolescent girls of 9th to 12th standard of government and private schools of Rewa, Madhya Pradesh, India for four months from June 2019 to September 2019, after obtaining informed consent from their parents and principals of respective schools, with the help of a pretested and semi-structured questionnaire. Data were analysed statistically by simple proportions. Chi-square test was applied to find the association between the variables. Results: Mean age of the participant girls was 15.82±1.34 years. An 84.88% of girls of private schools had heard about menstruation before menarche, 96.5% girls of private schools and 87.7% girls of government schools knew menstruation is a normal phenomenon. Hygienic practices are better in private school’s girls than government school. Study participants of government schools experienced more restrictions than private school girls. Conclusion: Awareness about menstrual health among adolescent girls was less, so it is essential that health professionals and officials of health must give family education and trained teachers about factors affecting the reproductive health of girls.

Keywords

• awareness regarding menstruation
• menarche
• reproductive health
• school going girls
• type of school