Knowledge, Problems and Practices of Adolescent Girls During Menstruation.

Background: Menstruation is a normal phenomenon and is almost universal in all females of reproductive age. Adolescence has been recognized as a special period which signifies the transition from girlhood to womanhood with the start of menstruation but there are substantial lacunae in knowledge about menstruation, problems they face and practices they adopt in this period. Objectives: 1.To know the knowledge about menstruation in adolescents, 2.To assess problems of menstruation, 3.To address the special needs regarding maintenance of hygiene during menstruation, 4.To notice impact of socioeconomic status upon them. Material and Method: A descriptive observational (cross sectional) study was carried to assess the knowledge, problems and practices by adolescent girls attending schools in a rural area of Kishanganj district (Bihar). A proforma consisted of predesigned , pretested, structured questionnaire to be filled up by the students and a check-list of height, wt, BP, HC, WC, to be filled up by the researchers , were used. Results: Among 200 adolescents, 70% knew that menstruation is a normal phenomenon; 79% were suffering from menstrual problems and regarding type of absorbats; 70% were using only sanitary napkins, while 30% were using both sanitary napkins and cloth as absorbants. Conclusion: This study shows a lack of understandings of the importance of maintenance of hygiene during menstruation and a lot of gap is present between problems during menstruation in adolescents due to lack of knowledge and proper guidance.

A community-based study of menstrual hygiene practices and willingness to pay for sanitary napkins among women of a rural community in northern India.

Background. Hygiene-related practices of women during menstruation are of paramount importance. There is a lack of sizeable literature on menstrual practices from northern India. We documented the menstrual hygiene practices of rural women and assessed their willingness to pay for sanitary napkins. Methods. A cross-sectional study was done in villages under the Comprehensive Rural Health Services Project (CRHSP), situated in Ballabgarh, Haryana. The study participants were women in the age group of 15–45 years. Nine villages were selected randomly while the number of respondents in each selected village was decided through the probability proportionate to size sampling method. The households were selected using systematic sampling. One woman was interviewed in each household using a pre-tested questionnaire. Results. A total of 995 women were interviewed. A majority of them (62%) were unaware of the reason(s) for menstruation. The role of the health sector in providing information regarding menstruation was low as only a few women (1.5%) had got information from the auxiliary nurse midwife (ANM)/health worker (HW). For the majority of women, besides religious activities, other routine activities did not suffer during menstruation. Only 28.8% of women were using sanitary napkins and of those who did not use napkins, only one-fourth (25.3%) were willing to buy them. The mean (SD) price per napkin that these women were ready to pay was `0.54 (0.43), equivalent to US$ 0.01. Conclusion. Women in the reproductive age group should be provided with appropriate information about menstruation, and they should be told about the advantages of using sanitary napkins. Health sector functionaries should play a proactive role in the delivery of such information.