Knowledge and Practice of Kerman Primary-Secondary School Girls on Menstrual Health in the Academic Year of 2008-2009

Introduction & Menarche is a developmental stage in females’ life in which psychological alterations are accompanied with physical ones. Since preparing girls to face menstrual related problems should be based on exact information, this study was conducted to determine the knowledge and practice of primary/secondary school girls in Kerman, Iran, in relation to menstrual health.Materials In this cross-sectional study, 450 primary and secondary schoolgirls were selected by multi-stage sampling method. Data gathering was done by a researcher-made questionnaire standardized for content validity by consultation with a number of experts and stability (α=0.83). Data analysis was done by SPSS version 15 software. Knowledge and practice were ranked in three levels of poor, moderate, and well. Mean age of subjects was 12.36 ± 1.49 years and mean age of menstruation onset was 11.98 ± 1.25 years. While, 292 (64.9 %) and 128 (28.4 %) of the subjects had respectively poor and moderate knowledge, only 30 (6.7 %) had good knowledge. In regard to the practice, 59 (30.3 %) had well, 105 (53.8 %) had moderate and 31(15.9 %) had poor practice. In 196 (43.6 %) of the subjects menstruation had occurred. There was a significant direct relationship between age and subjects’ knowledge and practice (P=0.001). It is necessary to provide adolescent girls with proper knowledge about puberty health aspects and it should be started from earlier ages. Designing regular and continuous educational programs in this relation for teachers, trainers and mothers is a health priority.