Menstrual health affecting school absenteeism during menstruation among adolescent girls in Nepal

Abstract

Background: Girls' adolescence characterized by the multiple changes and the significant one is the initiation of menarche. Despite being the natural regular normal process, there are some menstrual abnormalities female adolescents may encounter in their life. Inability to manage those anomalies efficiently can affect physical, psychological and emotional well-being, including their education because of school absenteeism. Objective: The main aim of the study is to assess characteristics of menstruation and examine its association with school absenteeism among adolescent girls of Nepal. Methodology: A quantitative, community based cross sectional analytical study was conducted among 317 adolescent girls who had already experienced menstruation in 11 different study sites. The questionnaire was self-administered to adolescent girls which was collected on the same day of data collection. Collected data were entered in Epi-data version 3.1 which was further imported to SPSS for further analysis. Logistic regression analysis was used to examine association between school missed due to menstruation and menstrual characteristics. Results: The study showed that the mean age of menarche is 12.9±0.97 years. The majority of adolescent girls (89.6%) have normal length of menstrual cycle where as 42.0% of them had moderate amount of bleeding and 35.3% of them had irregular menstruation cycle. Concerning the menstrual symptoms, adolescent girls experienced depressed mood (30.6%), rapid mood change (24.0%), and dizziness (15.31%). Almost half (46.7%) of adolescent girls had missed school due to menstruation. Dysmenorrhea, (AOR=1.75, 95% CI=1.08-2.83) experience of lower back pain (70.8%, AOR=2.81, 95% CI=1.11-7.10) and dizziness (72.0%, AOR=2.82, 95% CI=1.12-7.10) and use of clothes as absorbent (50.6%, AOR=1.87, 95% CI=1.04-3.38) during menstruation were found significantly associated with missing school during menstruation. Conclusions: Majority adolescent girls have normal menstruation but still there are many girls experiencing varies menstrual issues which influence school absenteeism during menstruation.