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

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.