Effectiveness of Structured Teaching Programme on Menstrual Hygiene among Adolescent Girls

Shaveta Sharma; Jyoti Kumari; Shweta Kumari; Supriya Kumari; Nitesh Kumar

doi:10.37591/jonsp.v12i1.2787

Abstract

A vital aspect of health education for adolescent girls in menstrual hygiene. An effective menstrualhygiene helps to achieve millennium development goals two (universal education), three (genderequality and women empowerment) and five (improving maternal health) directly or indirectly.Adolescent girls often have lack of knowledge regarding menstrual hygiene and reproductive health.The aim of the present study is to assess the level of knowledge among adolescent girls regardingmenstrual hygiene. A quasi experimental design was used with one group pre test and post test designwas adopted for the present study. Total 120 adolescent girls who fulfill the inclusion criteria wereselected by simple random sampling technique. Structured questionnaire was used for data collectionamong adolescent girls in selected schools of Sasaram. Data was collected regarding knowledgeabout menstrual hygiene. Data entry and analysis was carried out in Microsoft excel. Statisticalanalysis was done by using frequency. Out of 120 respondents, 89 (74%) attained menarche at theage between 13-14 years. Maximum number of girls 97 (81%) use sanitary napkins duringmenstruation while 5(4%) used cotton clothes. 84 (70%) girls know about menstruation beforemenarche and the sources was mother, Only 24 (20%) girls believe that water should be used to cleanthe genitalia in spite of soap and Dettol. In pre test only 40 (33.3%) girls know the right technique ofcleaning genitalia during menstruation. Among them 32 (26.6%) girls still do not take daily bathduring menstruation. In pre test 18 (15%) adolescent girls had good knowledge, 94 (78.3%) hadaverage knowledge while 8(6.6%) had poor knowledge while in post test 116 (96.66) had goodknowledge, 4(3.33) had average knowledge and none of them had poor knowledge. After structuredteaching programme knowledge score increased from 18 (15%) to 116 (96.66%) among adolescentgirls regarding menstrual hygiene. The pre-test mean value shows (11.77) while post-test mean valueis (17.708) and the value of t-test is 23.909. It is concluded that the structured teaching programme isan effective strategy to improve knowledge regarding menstrual hygiene for adolescent girls.Education regarding reproductive health and hygiene should be included as a part of school curriculum.