RÉSUMÉ
Background: Menarche refers to the onset of first menstruation. Despite being a normal, physiological process, menarche is still regarded as a taboo topic in some communities and ethnic groups. This situation makes many adolescent females vulnerable because of lack of knowledge, products, and infrastructure to deal with menarche. This study aims to assess the knowledge, attitude, and practices on menarche among adolescent girls in government schools of Dhangadhi sub-metropolitan city, a region where menstrual taboos are highly prevalent.Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among 383 adolescent school girls in Dhangadhi through a pre-tested semi structured questionnaire. Quantitative research method was applied through a self-administered questionnaire.Results: The study showed that the median age of menarche was 13 years. The main source of information about menarche was mother or grandmother (58.2%). Approximately, three fourth (71.4%) of the respondents had adequate knowledge, less than two third (61.6%) had positive attitude and nearly half (51.7%) of them had good practices on menarche. Factors like parents education and occupation, mother抯 age, age at menarche, grade and family type were found to be significantly associated with knowledge, attitude and practices on menarche.Conclusions: Despite the fact that the majority of respondents had an adequate level of knowledge on menarche, the level of practices on menarche was still poor. This study highlights the need for policy makers to focus on implementing knowledge and awareness programs in government schools to educate students and their parents about menarche and menstrual hygiene.
RÉSUMÉ
Background:Premenstrual syndrome (PMS)is a common menstrual disorder that affects the quality of life of women. The objective of this study is to identify the knowledge, attitude, experience and management on pre-menstrual syndrome among higher secondary level adolescence girls’ students of Kirtipur Municipality of Kathmandu district. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among 322 adolescence girl students of higher secondary school of Kritipur Municipality using pre-tested self-administeredquestionnaire. Results:The mean age of the respondents was 17 years. It was found that 90.2% of the respondent had very poor knowledge on premenstrual syndrome and 9.2% of the respondent had fair /below average knowledge regarding PMS. The level of knowledge among the study participants was found statistically significant with education status of mother (p=0.002) and that of father (p=0.013). The prevalence of PMS among the female students of higher secondary level was found to be high (77%). Considerablyhigh proportion of the participants reported having at least one somatic and one affective symptoms of premenstrual syndrome. The most frequent affective symptoms experienced by the respondents were mood swings, headache, irritability and somatic symptom was acnes in this study.Conclusions:Majority of the respondents had poor knowledge and extremely negative attitude towards PMS.High proportion of the participants reported having at least one somatic and one affective symptom of PMS. Comprehensive education on menstrual health and PMS can be suggested for the adolescence girl in school level