A Study of Menstrual Hygiene Among Adolescent School Girls in A Slum Area of Kolkata
Keywords:
Adolescent girls, Sanitary napkin, Leucorrhoea, Vaginal itchAbstract
Introduction: Reproductive tract infections are common among the adolescent girls. Poor menstrual and personal hygiene are known contributory factors. Objectives were to examine the prac- tice of menstrual hygiene among the adolescent school girls of ur- ban slum area and to see the association between use of sanitary napkin and prevalence of Leucorrhoea with low back pain or ab- dominal pain and vaginal burning/itching among them.
Methods: A cross sectional observational study was carried out among 460 adolescent girl students of an urban slum area with a predesigned, pretested questionnaire based on Global School - based Student Health survey. Data were analyzed using SPSS, ver- sion 21.
Results: Among 460 girls, 275 (60%) girls were from low socioeco- nomic status. Out of 376 (81.73%) girls who used only sanitary nap- kin, 359 (94.14%) girls did not complain of symptomatic leucor- rhoea and 326 (87.70%) had no vaginal itch or burning. Sixty eight (80.95%) and 62 (73.80%) girls out of 84 girls who did not use only sanitary napkin had symptomatic leucorrhoea. (P<0.000, OR 68.38) and had vaginal itch/burning (P<0.000, OR 18.37) respectively.
Conclusion: Use of sanitary napkin is highly prevalent among the adolescent girls from slum and incidence of symptomatic leucor- rhoea and vaginal itch/burning was significantly less among sani- tary napkin users.
References
Ghai Essential Pediatrics. Eighth edition. New Delhi: CBS Publishers and Distributors;2013. P 63-69.
Nair MKC, Adolescent office practice.2013; 3(3):102-106 Available at wwwimakmj.com Accessed on 10 May 2015.
Dutta A, Manna N, Dutta M.et al .Menstruation and men- strual hygiene among adolescent girls of West Bengal, In- dia: A school based comparative study. Global Journal of Medicine and Public Health.2012;1(5):50-57.
Thakre S B, Thakre S S, Reddy M et al . Menstrual hy- giene-Knowledge and practice among adolescents school girls of Saoner,Nagpur District.Journal of clinical and di- agnostic research.2011;5(5):1027-1033.
Jogdand K, Yerpude P. Community based study on men- strual hygiene among adolescent girls.IJMCH, 2011;13(3):1-6.
Kendre V. V, Ghattergi C H,A study on menstruation and personal hygiene among adolescent girls of Government Medical College of Solapur. National Journal of Commu- nity Medicine. 2013;4(2):272-276
K Kamaljit, Arora B, Singh GK.et al. Social beliefs and practices associated with menstrual hygiene among ado- lescent girls of Amritsar ,Punjab,In- dia.JIMSA,2012;25(2):69-70.
Adika V O, Yabga J, Apiyantedide F A,et al. Perception and behavior on use of sanitary pads during menstrua- tion among adolescent school girls in Bayelsa state ,Nige- ria. Advances in Applied Science Research.2011;2(6):9-15.
El Gilany AH, Badawi K. Menstrual hygiene among ado- lescent school girls in Mansoura,Egypt.Reprod Health Matters .2005;13(26):147-152
Poureslami M, Osati Ashtiani F . Attitudes of female ad- olescents about dysmenorrhoea and menstrual hygiene in Teheran suburbs. Arch Iranian Med .2002;5(4):219-24.
India (CBSE) GSHS Questionnaire.Available at http:// www.who.int/chp/gshs/en/ Accessed on 3rd October 2013.
Bhattacharya R, Bhattacharya SK, Baur B et al. Reproduc- tive tract infection among female Adolescents .Indian J Community Med.2006;31(1):32-33.
Sami N, Ali T S, Khan E Reproductive tract infection among married women in peri urban areas of Karachi, Pakistan; A population based study. National Journal of Community Medicine.2013;4(2):195-200.
Kulkarni RN, Durge PM. A study of leucorrhoea in re- productive age group women of Nagpur city. Indian J Public Health.2005;49(4):238-239.
B Sri Devi, N Swarnalatha. Prevalence of RTI/STI among reproductive age women(15-49years) in urban slums of Tirupati town, Andhra Pradesh. Health and popula- tion.2007;30(1):56-70.
Ziade F M, Neheme M. Assessment of beliefs and prac- tices relating to menstrual hygiene of adolescent girls in Labanon. IJHSR.2013;3(12):75-88.
Arumugam B, Nagalingam S, Varman P M ,et al. Men- strual hygiene practices: is it practically impractical. Int J Med Public Health.2014;4(4):472-6.
Kavitha V R S. Reproductive health and hygiene among adolescents.http:/www languageinindia 2012;12(2):293- 300.Accessed on 4th April 2015
Dasgupta A, Sarkar M. How hygienic is the adolescent girl? Indian J community Med.2008;33(2):77-80.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
The authors retain the copyright of their article, with first publication rights granted to Medsci Publications.
