MRIMS Journal of Health Sciences (Aug 2024)

Health status, menstrual hygiene practices, and anthropometric correlations among minority school girls

  • Batchu Naga Gayathri,
  • C. Lavanya,
  • Chandrasekhar Reddy Bolla

DOI
https://doi.org/10.4103/mjhs.mjhs_154_22
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12, no. 3
pp. 177 – 182

Abstract

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Background: Age group of 10–19 years has been designated as the adolescence period. This period decides future health and nutritional status. Girls are future mothers. Adolescents constitute 25% of the global population. Most of these populations are from developing countries. Objective: To study health status, menstrual hygiene practices, and anthropometric correlations among minority school girls. Methods: An institution-based cross-sectional study was carried out among 112 girls of age 11–18 years from a minority school. Socio-demographic information, complete general, and systemic examination as well as questions related to personal hygiene practices and menstrual hygiene practices were taken. Height, weight, and blood pressure were recorded as per the standard protocol. Body mass index (BMI) was calculated. Results: The prevalence of undernutrition was very high, i.e. 57.1%. The prevalence of refractive errors was 20.5%. Regarding personal hygiene practices, most of the girls were seen to follow good practices. Hand hygiene was present in 97.3% for washing hands before eating and among 98.2% for washing hands with soap and water after defecation. Regarding menstrual hygiene practices, only one girl told that she used the old cloth during menstruation and two girls disposed the pads improperly. Significant correlation was seen between age and BMI; systolic blood pressure (SBP) and BMI; diastolic blood pressure and BMI; and duration of stay in the hostel and SBP. Age was correlated with the height and BMI. When we compared mean height, weight, and BMI across age categories, we found that mean height was significantly more in higher age. Mean BMI was significantly lesser in higher age group. However, mean weight was almost similar. Conclusion: The prevalence of malnutrition was high. As the age increased, BMI decreased indicating that the given nutrition is not sufficient for their growing age. Hence, there is a need to give additional food supplementation for proper growth and nutrition. Awareness on personal and menstrual hygiene was very good.

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