A COMPARATIVE STUDY TO ASSESS THE MENSTRUAL HYGIENE PRACTICES AMONG ADOLESCENT GIRLS OF URBAN AND RURAL SCHOOLS OF LUDHIANA, PUNJAB.

Introduction: Menstruation is still regarded as something unclean or dirty in Indian society and it is strongly related with misconceptions and cultural restrictions. Lack of knowledge and poor hygienic practices during menstruation can lead to various gynecological problems in the reproductive life of girls. Aim & Objective: To study and compare the menstrual hygiene practices among adolescent girls of urban and rural schools of Ludhiana, Punjab. Method: A community based cross-sectional study on 100 adolescent girls (50 from urban and 50 from rural) age group of 13-18 years of urban and rural schools randomly selected (lottery method) from two conveniently selected schools of district of Ludhiana, Punjab. Data was collected in the month of March 2013. A structured questionnaire was used to collect the socio-demographic data, menstrual profile and Likert?s scale was used to assess the menstrual hygiene practices. The descriptive statistics, unpaired t test, ANOVA test was used for analysis. Study findings: Menstruation hygiene practice was more in urban adolescent girls as compared to rural. Majority 17(34%) of urban girls had excellent menstrual hygiene practices and 44(88%) of urban girls were using commercially available sanitary pads as compared to 31(62%) of rural girls. The majority of urban girls i.e. 31(62%) and rural girls i.e. 38(76%) had good menstrual hygiene practices. The mean score of menstrual hygiene practices of urban adolescent girls was higher i.e. 28.24 than the mean score of menstrual hygiene practices of rural adolescent girls i.e. 25.18. But the difference was found to be statistically non-significant at p=0.05 level of significance. There is no association between menstrual hygiene practices and selected demographic variables among adolescents girls of urban and rural school of Ludhiana, Punjab. Conclusion: To conclude, efforts should be taken to improve the menstrual hygiene practices of rural and urban adolescent girls so that vulnerability to reproductive tract infections should be decreased and suffering of millions of women can be mitigated.