Study on hygiene practice among adolescent girls with special reference to menstrual hygiene in Barpeta, Assam

Background: Lack of awareness and poor hygiene practices during menstruation can lead to various gynecological problems in the reproductive life of girls. Menstruation is still considered as unclean in the Indian society. Objectives: The objective of the study is to assess the hygiene practices among adolescent girls with special reference to menstrual hygiene in urban area of Barpeta and to assess the restrictions practiced by them during menstruation. Materials and Methods: It was a community-based cross-sectional study involving 200 adolescent girls of Barpeta conducted from August 2018 to January 2019. The data were collected using predesigned and pretested pro forma. Results: The study revealed that 92% of the respondents knew about menstruation before menarche. As high as 92% of the respondents believed that menstruation occurs due to natural or hormonal cause, whereas 1.5% considered it as a disease process. 81.5% girls used commercially available sanitary pads and 78.5% girls cleaned external genitalia with soap and water. All the participants avoid attending religious occasion, followed by kitchen work (57.5%), marriage party (31.5%), and 30.5% of them were sleeping separately. 46% of the respondent avoid sour food during menstruation. Conclusion: Although awareness regarding menstrual hygiene is quite satisfactory in majority of the respondents, yet false perceptions, ignorance, and unsafe practices are still prevailing in the community. Behavior change communication to bring about safe and hygienic practices during menstruation through different stakeholders will help in solving menstruation-related problems among the adolescent girls.