Reproductive Health of Adolescent Girls: A Questionnaire-Based Study in Coimbatore City (Menstrual Hygiene – Matters)

Dr.Uma Devi T.

Menstrual Hygiene; Adolescent Girls; Knowledge and Practices

Background: Menstrual hygiene is a difficult health issue that’s insufficiently acknowledged. Lack of adequate privacy and sanitation of toilets for the adolescent girls make them build susceptible to mental, emotional and physical downside particularly throughout their unwell days. Objectives: To study the reproductive health of the adolescent girls in Coimbatore City. Method: A descriptive, cross-sectional survey study was conducted among 810school going adolescent girls from Coimbatore city. Results: Out of 810 respondents, It is observed from the results that 31.7% (257) of the respondents fall in the age group of 16 years (mean 15.5 years, SD 1.16); 87.9% (712) of the respondents were living in the urban area; 84% (680) of the respondents were from nuclear family;60.4% (489) of the respondents had normal body mass index (mean 20.39,SD 8.9); 57.2%(463) of the respondents’ haemoglobin showed a normal range with the mean level of 11.98 and SD of 7.42;50.1% (406) of the respondents were consuming fast / junk food; only a small number of the respondents involved in regular physical activities. Menstrual pattern of the respondents reveals that50.7% of the respondents attained menarche between the ages of 13 and 14 years; 81.5% (660) of them had regular menstruation; 70.2% (569) of the respondents had normal menstruation i.e. for every 21- 35 days; 64.4% (522) of the respondents had menstrual bleeding between 3 and 5 days; 69.0% of the respondents have bleeding on the second day of menstrual cycle; 63.70% (516) of the respondents change 2-4 pads during menstruation. Findings from the study have identified a consistent 83.83% of the adolescent girls with significant menstrual morbidity and a highly significant association between all combinations of knowledge, belief, pain, anthropometric measurement, diet pattern, symptoms and daily life interference. Conclusion: Adoption of prime quality menstrual hygiene can play a very important role in bar of RTI and Cancer of cervix among the women population. Thus promoting positive attitudes towards management of menstrual problems and related issues among the adolescent girls is that the need of hour.

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