Menstrual hygiene management and menstrual problems among adolescent girls in an urban area in north India: A cross-sectional study

Abstract

ABSTRACT Introduction: Most adolescent women face many restrictions, which become much more severe during menstruation. In India, millions of adolescent girls drop out of school every year due to menstruation-related problems and restrictions. Despite extensive research, a paucity of literature was observed on the level of knowledge, attitude, and practices of adolescent girls regarding menstruation. Hence, we proceeded to undertake the present study, to have a deeper understanding of the menstrual hygiene management of adolescents. Aims: To describe the menstrual hygiene management among adolescent school girls. Objectives: (a) To examine the association, if any, between menstrual hygiene management and school absenteeism during menstruation in adolescent school girls. Materials And Methods: We conducted a school-based cross-sectional analytical study in an urban area in north India. The study population comprised adolescent school girls of all the high schools in the urban area. With a 95% confidence interval, and 5% margin of error, the sample size was calculated to be 369. However, an even larger sample size of 600 was actually studied. The probability proportional to size sampling approach was followed based on the number of adolescent girls in each school class/section. Participants were selected through a stratified proportionate sampling method. Ethical approval was obtained from the ethical committee of the district director of education of the urban area where the study was conducted before the commencement of the study. Confidentiality of the information collected was ensured. The data collected was quantitative in nature, using a pretested self-administered questionnaire consisting of both open-ended and close-ended questions. Data was checked for its completeness, coded, and entered into Microsoft Excel 2021 Spreadsheet. Subsequently, the data was imported into IBM Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) Statistics for Windows, Version 23.0. Armonk, NY: IBM Corp. for data analysis. Standard statistical methods were utilized for data analysis. Results: The mean age (standard deviation [SD]) of the study participants was 13.68 (1.29). The mean age (SD) at menarche was 13.29 (0.96). Based on the overall menstrual hygiene management score, 377 (62.83%) of the study participants were engaged in good menstrual hygiene management, while 223 (37.17%) were engaged in poor menstrual hygiene management. The mean score (SD) was 7.80 (±0.43). Compared to those aged 17–19 years, those aged 10–13 years had a 0.36 (95% CI 0.17–0.75) decreased odds of good menstrual hygiene, while those aged 14–16 years had a 0.29 (95% CI 0.14–0.59) decreased odds of good menstrual hygiene. The adjusted odds ratios were 0.32 (95% CI 0.19–0.65) and 0.25 (95% CI 0.12–0.41) respectively. Out of 600 study participants, 229 (38.17%) reported school absenteeism at least once in the last 1 year because of menstruation. The mean (standard deviation) duration of school absenteeism was 2.4 (0.78) days per menstrual cycle. The commonest reason for menstruation-related school absenteeism was pain, wherein 105 (45.85%) study participants reported this reason. Conclusion: In our study, we observed that over two-thirds of the study participants were engaged in good menstrual hygiene practices, while ~40% of them reported menstrual-related school absenteeism. Our study also found evidence that the age of the school girls was associated with their menstrual hygiene management practices. We recommend further research on the impact of menstruation and its management on the academic performance of adolescent school girls. Efforts are also required to develop the capacity of teachers to teach menstrual hygiene education.