Knowledge and Practice of Menstrual Hygiene among Female Students of Government Day Senior Secondary School (GDSSS) Tal, Billiri Local Government Area, Gombe State, Nigeria

Abstract

This objective of this study was to assess the knowledge and common Menstrual Hygiene (MH) practices among female students at Government Day Secondary School (GDSS) Tal, Billiri Local Govt Area of Gombe State, Nigeria. A cross sectional descriptive study design was adopted for the study and a simple probability proportional to size (PPS) sampling technique was used to select a sample of 133 respondents out of a total of 194 female students aged 14 to 22 years, spread across all the three grades of senior secondary school students. A self-constructed 46-item instrument was used for data collection. The mean age at menarche (first menstrual period) for the girls was 14±1.24 years, and their average duration of menstrual flow was 3±1.04 days. A good majority (80.9%) of them exhibited either medium or higher level of knowledge of menstrual hygiene. This perhaps explains why majority (75.9%) of them used sanitary pad and 43.2% used new piece of cloth. Furthermore, majority (87.1%) of the girls were in the habit of changing pad/absorbent more than once in a day. Commendably, an overwhelming majority (90.8%) of them take bath two to three times a day, and 79.5% use soap and water for cleaning of their external genitalia, just as 66.4% of them impressively practice washing of their genitalia from front to back. Some of the factors that undermines menstrual hygiene as opined by the respondents include “No money to buy sanitary pad” (63.9%), “There is no privacy in school to change regularly” (60.0%), “Family only allows or affords use of tissue and cloth materials (34.6%) and “Religion forbids public places when menstruating (30.5%)”. Considering the above it is recommended that sustainable women and girlchild economic empowerment programmes and free school-based sanitary pad distribution interventions be deployed to the area of study.