Assessment of the Impact of Menstrual Hygiene Management on School Absenteeism: A Case Study of Central College Mityana
Abstract
Background: Adolescence in girlshas been recognised as a special period marked with the onset of menarche, even though menstruation is a natural process, it is associated with misconceptions, malpractices and challenges among girls in developing countries, however, school-absenteeism and school-dropout is common among girls especially in rural areas, focusing among school girls, this study has examined knowledge about menstruation, determinants of menstrual management and its influence to school attendance(Tegegne, 2014).
Methods: 100 respondents were selected using systematic random sampling which is a probability sampling technique to ensure equal chances of participation of respondents into the study and as well minimize selection bias hence a low error margin.A target population in this study was used of female adolescent students from central college Mityana in form two and form three. The researcher chose form two and form three because all female students are in their adolescence stage and are expected to have experienced their menstrual periods.
Results: Majority of the respondents were aged 15 years. Even though some respondents used newspapers, cloths, hand towels as their menstrual material during periods most of them used sanitary pads and discarded them in the toilets. Majority of the respondents bathed once a day when changing their menstrual material and most them took three days in their periods.
Conclusion: There is an impact of menstrual hygiene management on school absenteeism since those who took more days in their periods had a tendency of missing school.
Keywords: Menstrual hygiene, menstrual knowledge, menarche, sanitary pads, adolescent school girls, school absenteeism, school dropout.