Knowledge and Attitude Regarding Menstrual Blood Banking

Abstract

Introduction or Background : The menstrual blood is being discharged by the female every month considering it is useless. But researchers found out that it contains plenty of self-renewing stem cells. Stem cells are master cells that have the capability of turning into any sort of cell in the body. They are very proliferative and have the unique capacity to form into different sorts of healthy cells such as cells of blood, heart, bones, skin, muscles, and brain cells. Objective of this study: Is to assess the knowledge and attitude of female health care professionals regarding menstrual blood banking. Method and Material: The study was carried out in various departments of Manipal University, Manipal. Descriptive survey design was used. Using purposive sampling method 220 female health care professionals were selected for the study. Structured knowledge questionnaire and attitude scale was used for data collection. Descriptive statistics was used for analysis. Findings: The study identified that 75 (34.1%) had poor, 116 (52.7%) had average and 29(13.2%) had good knowledge regarding menstrual blood banking among female health care professionals. The attitude of female health care professionals shows that 76 (34.5%) has favorable, and 144 (65.5%) has unfavorable attitude towards menstrual blood banking. Conclusions: The study results shows that the majority of the subjects had unfavorable attitude. Hence incidental teaching was given to improve their knowledge and change their attitude and making known about the facts to the public remains challenging but the present research should show its possibility and gain its momentum.