RESUMO
Introduction: "Adolescence" literally means "to emerge"or "to attain identity" and is essentially the period of rapidphysical and psychological development. The World HealthOrganization (WHO) defines “adolescent” as an individualbetween 10 to 19 years of age. About 19.7% of Indianpopulation is adolescents. Nutritional health problems areone of the important health problem faced by adolescents.Prevalence of anemia in adolescents (15-19 years) girls is54%. Underweight is seen among 46.4% adolescent girls.Hence this study was conducted to find out nutritional healthproblems of adolescent girls in a rural area of Nagpur district.Menstrual hygiene was also studied.Material and methods: A cross sectional study was carriedout in one of the randomly selected school in a rural area ofNagpur. Calculated sample size was 145, though the studywas carried out on 150 adolescent girls in August 2019 usinga pre-designed and pre- tested questionnaire.Results: Mean age of study participants was 14.87± 2.77years. Prevalence of anemia was found to be 80%. Prevalenceof undernutrition was 36%. None of the student receivedweekly iron and folic acid tablets in last three months. Only28% study subjects received information of menstrual hygieneprior to menarche.Conclusion: Prevalence of anemia and undernutrition wasfound to be high in a school of rural area of Nagpur district.WIFS program should be strengthened through inter-sectoralcollaboration among health and education sectors
RESUMO
Menstruation in adolescent girls is often associated with menstruation related problems and poor practices. The study was planned to investigate the menstrual related problems and menstrual practices among school going adolescent girls. The study was a community based cross sectional study in a girls’ school in Nagpur. Majority of menstrual practices were significantly better in urban girls as compared to rural girls (P<0.05). Majority of the girls (71.83%) had at least one problem related to menstrual cycles. There was a significant difference in proportion of menstrual problems in rural and urban girls (P<0.01). Menstrual problems are a common source of morbidity in this population.