A Descriptive Study to assess the Menstrual Hygiene Awareness among Adolescent girls in Urban Areas at Akkamahadevi High school Davanagere

Abstract

Adolescence is a critical period characterized by significant physical, emotional, cognitive, and social changes, including the monthly occurrence of menstruation of adolescent girls. Despite being an inevitable natural event, most societies consider menstruation and menstrual blood as restrictions and impure. Such consideration prevents many adolescent girls from proper managing the experience. Objectives: 1. To assess the awareness of menstrual hygiene among adolescent girls. 2. To associate the awareness scores with demographic variables of adolescents’ girls. Methods: This was an institutional based descriptive study conducted at Akkamahadevi high school davanagere among 80 adolescent girls, randomly selected using stratified sampling technique. Data on socio-economic, age in years, religion, type of family, education of mother, occupation of the mother, family income, age of menarche, course of studying, type of the family, type of food pattern and source of information regarding importance of menstrual hygiene awareness and management. Variables and menstrual characteristics were collected using pre-tested questionnaires. Results: Finding of the study revealed that the mean age of the adolescent girls in the study population is 14.4±1.026 years and the mean age of adolescent girls at menarche is found to be 11.68±1.573 years, which is in par with others study published in recent years. The mean awareness score of the adolescent girls in the study population is 16.31(81.55%) with the standard deviation of 1.446. Association between awareness scores of adolescent girls regarding menstrual hygiene with their selected personal variables reveals that personal variables such as age in years, religion, type of family, education of mother, occupation of the mother, family income, age of menarche, course of studying, type of the family, type of food pattern and source of information with were not having significant association the awareness scores regarding menstrual hygiene. Conclusion: From the study findings, majority of adolescent girls having good awareness of menstrual hygiene. But girls hesitate when discussing sensitive topics like menstrual hygiene. During general discussion, girls expressed that still they don't exercise proper hygiene throughout their periods. During menstruation, the majority of girls are still subjected to various restrictions. Thus, it is important to create a healthy environment where everyone can talk honestly about their personal experiences with this type of sensitive subject. There is a great need to create awareness and promote hygienic practices during periods in adolescent girls.