%0 Journal Article
%T Impact of menstrual awareness and knowledge among adolescents in a rural area
%A Bhavna Langer
%A Rajiv Kumar Gupta
%A Rashmi Kumari
%A Rayaz Jan
%A Remia Mahajan
%A Richa Mahajan
%J -
%D 2015
%X Background: Socio-cultural factors have a bearing on women's attitude towards menstruation. Health care providers should be aware of how women react to menstruation while providing health care. Aims & Objectives: To elicit menstrual awareness and knowledge of the rural adolescent girls and assess how this awareness, knowledge and demographics influence their menstrual attitude. Methodology: A community based descriptive cross-sectional study was undertaken among 245 adolescent school going girls in a rural area. Adolescent Menstrual Attitude Questionnaire (AMAQ) was used as a data collection device. Data were compared by using SPSS (ver. 20.0) at the level of 0.05. Results: At menarche, 59.9% adolescents were aware of menstruation and in 3/4th of them, mothers were the source of information. There was a statistically significant effect of menstrual awareness (yes or no) and menstrual knowledge (nil, partial and complete) on the combined dependent variables (F(6,238)=9.0, p= 0.000, WilkĄ¯s Lambda=0.81, partial eta square=0.29 and F(6,237)=8.01, p= 0.000, WilkĄ¯s Lambda=0.69, partial eta square=0.20 respectively). Older adolescents had favorable attitude towards menstruation in three significant dimensions i.e. living with menarche, openness and acceptance. Significant effect of motherĄ¯s educational level was observed on five dimensions of menstrual attitude. Conclusion: Menstrual attitude is significantly affected by menstrual awareness and knowledge. Demographics too contributed in bringing positive attitude. There is a need to plan menstrual health education programme for adolescent girls and their mothers
%U http://www.iapsmupuk.org/journal/index.php/IJCH/article/view/604