Awareness regarding Menstrual Hygiene among Girl Students of a School in Chitwan

ABSTRACT Introduction: Adolescent girls often lack knowledge regarding reproductive health including menstruation which can be due to socio-cultural barriers in which they grow up. It is important to educate adolescents about issues related to menstruation so that they can safeguard themselves and hold implications for professionals involved in improvement of reproductive health. The main objective of the study was to find out awareness regarding menstrual hygiene among girl students of a school in Chitwan. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in a school in Chitwan among girl students of school from grade 8, 9 and 10 from 2019 July to August 2019 after ethical approval. All the girl students from grade 8, 9 and 10 were included into the study. Data were entered and calculations were using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 20. Results: Among 184 adolescent girls, 156 (84.8%) were aware about the menstrual hygiene and most of them 176 (95.7%) knew about the criteria of ideal absorbent to be used during menstruation. Likewise, 120 (65.2%) were aware regarding washing the genital organs, 137 (74.5%) were changing sanitary pad and 136 (73.9%) were disposing used sanitary pad. The mean age of girl students was 14.48±1.259 years respectively. Conclusions: Awareness regarding menstrual hygiene was present among the girl students, but practice for proper menustral hygiene was low compared to studies done in similar settings.


INTRODUCTION
Menstruation is the periodic discharge of blood and mucosal tissue from the uterus and vagina. 1 Different studies in Tanzania and Nigeria has shown most of the women use toilet tissue or cloth instead of sanitary pads. 2,3 Between 31% and 56% of Nigerian school girls have been found as using toilet tissue or cloth to absorb their menstrual blood as opposed to menstrual pads. 3 Nearly half of the adolescent girls had not known of the origin of menstrual and had unhygienic practices and misconceptions. 4 Free Full Text Articles are Available at www.jnma.com.np Women spend around six to seven years of their lives menstruating as a result key priority should be given for the necessary knowledge, facilities and cultural environment to manage menstruation hygienically and with dignity for women and girls.In reality, the importance of hygiene during menstrual period is highly neglected. 5 The main objective of the study was to find out awareness regarding menstrual hygiene among girl students of a school in Chitwan.

METHODS
A descriptive cross-sectional study design was done at Shree Narayani Vidyamandir Madhyamik Vidyalaya, Shivanagar, Chitwan, Nepal from 2019 July to August 2019 after ethical approval. Data was collected continuously during the study period. Whole population of girl students from grade 8 to10 were taken into study who already had their menarche. Self-administered structured questionnaire was used to collect data collection within adolescent students of class 8, 9 and 10. Total Sample size was 184 who had already menarche.
Verbal and written consent were also taken from the respondents during this study. The collected data was checked, reviewed and organized for completeness. Data was entered and calculations for binary data was done along with frequency and proportion using SPSS version 20.

RESULTS
Most 156 (84.8%) of the respondents were aware about the menstrual hygiene and most of them 176 (95.7%) knew about the criteria of ideal absorbent to be used during menstruation. But it was found that they were aware least 2 (1.1%) about how often the absorbent be changed. The respondents had the better awareness regarding others factors like washing the genital organs 120 (65.2%), changing of sanitary pad 137 (74.5%), disposing of sanitary pad 136 (73.9%) and washing of genital organs during menstrual period 165 (89.7%) ( Table 1).

DISCUSSION
The finding of the study shows that 97.3% of the total respondents were aware what the menstruation is but only 60.9% knew the causes. One of studies showed that only 31% believed that menstruation was a normal physiological process, 6 that very findings are contraindicated by the present study. Similarly, this result was contraindicated by another study which showed that only 36.7% of girls knew that it is caused by hormones, 6.0% of girls knew that menstruation is a normal physiological process. 7 The present study shows that 84.8% of the respondents knew that menstrual hygiene is maintaining proper perineal hygiene during menstruation which is similar to the study which showed that 81% respondents knew about meaning of menstrual hygiene. 8 The present study findings show that 97.8% of the respondents have the knowledge that period of menstrual blood flow is 3-7 days. Similarly, a study showed that 79 % respondents answered that period of menstrual blood flow is 3-7 days. 9 This finding is also consistent with another study, where 83.3% respondents answered that period of menstrual blood flow is 3-7 days. 10 Recent study indicates that 98.9% respondents have no knowledge that to avoid infection and odour, pad should be changed every 4 hours per day. Similar study showed that only 1.1% of respondents were aware that to avoid infection and odour pad should be changed every 4 hours per day. 11 The findings of the study show that 95.7% respondents opined that new clean cloth and sanitary pad is the ideal absorbent to be used during menstruation. This finding is also similar with study findings, where 97% women opined that sanitary pad is the ideal absorbent to be used during menstruation. 10 CONCLUSIONS Awareness regarding menstrual hygiene was high among the girl students, but practice for proper menstrual hygiene was low comparted to studies done in similar settings. Still most of them were not aware of the hygienic practices to avoid infection, odour and frequency to change the sanitary pads.