Awareness of Menstrual Hygiene and Factors Affecting its Practice Among Adolescent Girls in Two Selected Senior Secondary Schools in Ogun State, Nigeria

Abstract

Background: In Africa, menstrual hygiene and its practices are still clouded by taboos and sociocultural restrictions, ignorance and illiteracy so that menstruation is viewed in a base manner, and considered dirty and filthy, which requires the isolation of the woman from some normal daily activities. Thus, menstrual hygiene involves the conditions and activities that promote and preserve health during menstruation. This study assessed the awareness of menstrual hygiene and factors affecting its practice among adolescent girls in two selected senior secondary schools in Ogun state, Nigeria. Method: The study utilized quantitative cross-sectional survey design. Purposive sampling technique was used in selecting 150 respondents for the study in the two selected senior secondary schools. Descriptive statistics, correlation and T-test fixed at 0.05 significance level was conducted to give statistical responses to the research hypotheses using SPSS version 21. Result: The result showed that adolescent girls in Babcock University High School (BUHS) and Remo High School (RHS) had advanced knowledge of menstrual hygiene and they had moderate practices of menstrual hygiene, but there were factors like religion and lack of conducive facilities affecting the effective practice among adolescent girls. Furthermore, respondents’ knowledge on menstrual hygiene had no significant positive relationship with practices of menstrual hygiene among adolescent girls in private schools and those in public schools (r = .022, p > .01). There was no significant difference between adolescent girls in private and public schools on practice of menstrual hygiene. Conclusion: Adolescent girls in BUHS and RHS had advanced knowledge of menstrual hygiene but moderate menstrual hygiene practices. This may be as a result of factors such as religion and lack of conducive facilities that hinder the effective practice among adolescent girls as identified in the study. Among other recommendations, the school administrations are advised to provide more conducive and appealing facilities for adolescent girls to practise good menstrual hygiene.