MENSTRUAL HYGIENE PRACTICES AMONG HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS IN FIELD PRACTICE AREA OF RURAL HEALTH AND TRAINING CENTRE, KAKATIYA, WARANGAL.

Introduction : Menstruation is a normal physiological process offemales but moreoften considered as unclean phenomenon in the society. Menstrual hygiene management (MHM) is a problem for adolescent girls in low and middle income countries (LMICs), particularly when attending school. Poor water supply, poor sanitation and hygiene (WASH) facilities in schools, inadequate puberty education and lack of hygienic MHM items (absorbents) cause girls to experience menstruation as shameful and uncomfortable event.Hence, the present study was done to assess knowledge and practices about menarche and menstruation, sanitary pads usage, in adolescent school girls in rural field practising area of Kakatiya medical college, Warangal. Objective: Toassessknowledge, attitude and practices regarding menstruation among study subjects and to find prevalence of menstrual problems in the study population. Methodology: Thisstudy was a cross-sectional study conducted for about 2months amongst high school girls (11-15 yrs) of a Government high School,Wardhannapet, located in rural field practising area of Kakatiya medical college,Warangal. Dataof 216 girls was obtained by using simple random sampling technique which was put to excel sheet and appropriate statistical tests were applied using SPSS version21. The questionnaire used, was predesigned and pretested semi structured, obtained by personal interview method. Results: The study sample of 216 high school girls reveals that the mean age at menarche is 12.6 + 1.08 years,knowledge about menstruation, on an average was 67%, routine menstruation affects their house work (74%), and routine activities (52.3%). More than half (56%) of them missed their school because of menstruation due tolack of proper place to change or dispose sanitary pads in school(56%), pain and discomfort(23.1%) and also due to fear of staining(18.1%).Missing school is more (28.3%) among girls suffering from dysmenorrhoeaand is found to be statistically significant at p<0.05. (Chisquare-10.373, p-value0.001). Conclusion: Although knowledge was found to be just satisfactory still attitude and practices were further stepped down due to prevailing misconceptions and in born restrictions associated with menstruation.