Knowledge, Attitude and Socio-cultural Beliefs of Adolescent Girls towards Menstruation

Knowledge regarding physiology of menstruation and hygienic practices are poor in adolescent girls. Deep rooted social beliefs make their attitude more negative.Material and Methods: In a hospital based cross sectional study, one hundred adolescent girls who have attained menarche were interviewed with a pre-validated semi-structured questionnaire to assess their knowledge, experiences, effect of mother’s education on menstrual hygienic practices and factors affecting their positive and negative attitude.Results: Mean age of menarche was 13.28 (SD ± 1.42) years. Mothers were the first informant to 56% girls. Only 11% girls knew that menstruation is a normal biological phenomenon and 28% girls were mentally prepared before menarche. Readymade pads were being used by 46% girls. Most girls were forced to follow various restrictions during menstruation. Maternal education was significantly associated with use of readymade pads (p-value 0.031). Significant positive correlation was seen between premenarchal preparedness to pleasantness (r = 0.3215; p = 0.001) while negative correlation was found between preparedness to secrecy (r = -0.1549; p = 0.124), annoyance (r = -0.1421; p = 0.158) and worrying thoughts (r = - 0.2074; p = 0.038). Negative correlation was also seen between years of experience with menses to secrecy and worrying thought (r = -0.0162; p = 0.872 and r = -0.1033; p = 0.864 respectively).Conclusion: There is significant lack of knowledge, poor hygienic practices and negative attitude among adolescent girls that needs to be addressed by educating them and their mothers.J Nepal Paediatr Soc 2016;36(1):42-49